Everlong
by solariswrites
Summary: I thought Peter was ruthless and cruel just because he could be, just because he learned from Eric. But the reality is, if it weren't for him, I would have been booted out of Dauntless in the first week. (Manipulates the universe of the books a little but still semi follows the plot of it)
1. Chapter 1

When I first chose Dauntless, it was difficult to believe that I really chose it. Now, I can't imagine choosing anything else.

It is not just because of Peter, though that is an important chunk of it. It is also because of the courage, strength, and trust that I've developed during my time here. The kind of camaraderie that comes with risking your life for others and trusting they risk their lives in return brings people together in a way that could never be understood by merely reading a textbook or experimenting in a lab. That's why I left Erudite. They would never understand that.

Being Erudite was a lifetime ago. The blue blazers, neat hair, and glasses were a girl, timid and afraid but with a million facts running through her head. The day I traded that in for leather jackets and tattoos was the day I learned to shut my brain up. It was the same city but a different way of life. To do rather than think. To live rather than fear.

I remember the day I entered the Dauntless compound. I was the third poor son of a bitch to take the plunge toward a hole in the roof only to hit the harsh but safe material of the net at the bottom of it. There were hands pulling me as I made my way off the net, twisting and stretching until my feet hit solid ground. I looked up at the hole in the sky, wondering how gruesome it would have been if I happened to still be laying in the net when the next initiate came hurling towards it. Would the momentum have crushed my bones, rendering me factionless before I could even begin? I tried to do the math in my head, calculating my approximate velocity and my mass and a possible velocity and mass of the next initiate.

There was a hand gripped around my arm that jolted me from my thoughts, holding me tighter than necessary. There would be bruises in the morning. If I survived that long.

"I don't have all day, initiate." The owner of the hand spoke to me harshly but there was a sense of boredom. Like he couldn't care less. "Name?"

"Lana." My name came out as barely a whisper.

"What was that?" His voice was mocking.

"Lana." I coughed a bit louder, still intimidated by his presence. The man was only a few years older than I was but was tall. His body was littered with scars and taut muscles stood out against his skin. It was clear that he was no stranger to violence.

He leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes. His fingers tightened around the flesh of my arms as he leaned in, his muscles tightening and rippling underneath his black t-shirt. "Are you afraid, Lana?"

"No." I sounded stronger, but I felt smaller. He knew it.

"I hope you turn out to be stronger than your voice is." He sneers. "We don't let mice into Dauntless."

As he let go of my arm, he shoved me toward the other initiates. My upper arm had five red imprints in the shapes of his fingers, aching and throbbing. I knew I must have looked like a kicked puppy by the looks of pity the others gave me as I walked over to them. A Dauntless woman stood with them and leaned down toward me. She had kind eyes and countless tattoos. She brushed her short hair out of her eyes and gave me a pat on the shoulder, the first reassuring gesture I'd known that day.

"I just want to formally apologize in advance for Peter." She says, shaking her head. "Unfortunately, he's in charge of your training. Fortunately, after training, you'll barely see him."

I nod. The difference between this woman and Peter is astounding.

"My name's Christina. Yours?"

"Lana." I say, forcing strength into my voice and holding it steady. "My name is Lana."

Christina nodded in approval and gave me one last pat on the back before watching the rest of the initiates scream as they fell into the net, officially beginning the process to actually becoming a member of Dauntless. From there, we were given a tour of the compound and celebrated our first meal in our new home. It wasn't until I lay in bed that night, surrounded in the crummy form by boys and girls alike, that I realized just how severe the situation was. I was stuck here; it was too late to turn back. Not everyone here would be like Christina. I suspected most of them would be like Peter. His face was imprinted in my nightmares that night.

"Hey." Someone was nudging me, poking my shoulders and my face. "Lana, get up."

I rolled over to find myself face to face with Alex, a fellow Erudite transfer. She smiled bright and wide at me like she was gushing with excitement. It was almost as though she should have gone to Amity instead of this sunless place. I hoped she was tough enough. I hoped I was tough enough.

"First day of training!"

She practically pulled me out of bed and down to the training room before my brain was awake enough to process that my feet were moving at all. Others were shuffling around us, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Most were still in bed, almost all Dauntless-borns who had been waiting for this their whole lives. The rest of us couldn't sleep or were taken from their beds by perky should-be-Amity's.

I looked around the training room when we got there. Aside from the two of us, there were four or five people around. One boy was filled to the brim with dread, the tears in his eyes indicating the regret at choosing his current faction. I focused on Alex's foot tapping against the ground instead rather than worrying about whether I wore the same look of terror on my face. For once, I was grateful for Alex's energy and joy.

A few more shuffled in one by one until I couldn't tell if they were early, like Alex and I were, or if they were on time.

"Alright, initiates! Line up!" Peter barked as he swung the door to the training room.

Everyone in the room scurried into a single line, shoulder to shoulder. The boy next to me bumped my right arm, the one that Peter held in a vicious grip yesterday. I gasped and looked down to find dark purple bruises standing prominent against my skin. When I looked up, I found myself practically nose to nose with someone. Peter. Of course.

"Eyes up, Lana" he spat my name like it was an insult. He looked down at my arm and smiled, proud of his handiwork. I couldn't help but wonder how someone could look so innocent and so much like a rabid dog at the same time.

"This is the scoreboard which your eyes will be glued to for the entirety of your training. Anyone under this line at the end will be cut."

A timid girl raised her hand, trembling as she did. Peter's eyes shifted to her and focused on her as if he were eating her fear. I don't know what made him cruel but it was hard to believe he was always this way. But maybe some people are born with evil in their hearts, no matter what faction they come from.

"What?" he spat.

"What do you mean by cut?" her voice was weaker than mine.

I wished she would be his new target so he would let up on me a little. It was the most selfish I'd been in my life and I didn't have Abnegation roots.

"You'll be booted the hell out of this faction so as not to poison it and you'll be living the rest of your lives with the factionless, taking handouts from Stiffs to survive." He responds with coldness that I'd never seen in anyone before. Maybe he had found his new target.

"On that note, everyone to a punching bag! Hussle!"

At that, everyone scurried off to a punching bag, throwing punches and kicks at it with fearful enthusiasm. They put their whole bodies behind the assaults, hurting themselves more than helping themselves. They looked clueless; they didn't know how to do any of this stuff yet. The only people who actually had a clue were the Dauntless-borns. It didn't seem logical to me, we didn't know the proper form, technique, anything! What use was this?

"What're you waiting for, Squealer?" Peter asked, jabbing his thumb into one of my bruises.

"Squealer?" My voice wasn't as confident or loud as it was with Christina yesterday. I still was that small girl with her eyes to the floor and whose voice cracked when she spoke because she didn't use it often. If it weren't for the blue I wore in school, people would have mistaken me easily for Abnegation.

"You aren't loud now, but I'm sure you will be when you get that first kick to the teeth."

"Aren't you going to teach us how to actually do this stuff?" I asked, putting effort into steadying my voice rather than think about his new nickname for me.

He chuckles and looks around at the other initiates in a frenzy of violence against the swinging inanimate objects around us. They're too filled with fear to think clearly.

"I was going to let everyone make idiots of themselves the first day." He laughed again, sadistic. Why was he in charge of us? I'd heard stories about one of the leaders, Eric, who was in charge of training a few years back. I wish we'd gotten him instead of Peter.

"But," Peter continued. "Since you definitely need whatever advantage you can get, I will start your lesson early."

"Lucky me." I rolled my eyes. That took a lot of courage. Maybe I will fit in here.

"Watch it." He said, sharply.

"How do I do this?"

"Make a fist like this?" He curled his fingers, manipulating them into a powerful fist that I prayed never to be on the other end on. I imitated him, curling my fingers in the same way until it made the same shape only much smaller and much weaker. I promised myself I would work until I was powerful, like he was. I would be Dauntless. I would belong here.

He grunted and I took that to mean I did okay for an initiate. It's about the little victories, isn't it?

"Now try throwing a punch."

I tried, swinging my fist at the bag, throwing my full body at it with as much momentum as I could muster. My hand collided with it and an explosion of pain burst across my hand. It was freeing.

I looked back to Peter laughing at me. "I like the enthusiasm, Squealer." He clapped and his tone oozed with sarcasm. "Plant your feet into the ground."

I did as he said. His hands were around my waist all of a sudden, twisting my torso abruptly, making my ribs scream in protest. I let out a noise mixed with surprise and pain as his hands stayed on my hips for longer than they needed to after he had already positioned me. My face reddened in embarrassment.

"Wow, I didn't even need to wait until you got punched to hear you squeal." He raised his eyebrows and looked down on me. I felt bigger than I did at the beginning of the day.

"Thanks for the help." I say, trying to make myself sound cold like he did. I stared at the punching bag, preparing myself to throw more punches instead of looking him in the eye. I wanted him to stop looking at me.

"You're welcome." He snorted and walked off, a cocky arrogance in every step he took. I bet he was first in his class.

My next hours were spent punching my spirit away in that training room, blocking out everything around me. My pain, the other initiates, even Peter did not cross my mind until I looked down at my beaten hands. They were swollen and bruised from the effort.

For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to be Dauntless.


	2. Chapter 2

The first stage of training was undeniably brutal and cruel, filled with the violence that made everyone so afraid of the Dauntless. In that training room, I did not see brave keepers of justice dedicated to extraordinary acts of bravery. I saw cowards who would sacrifice anyone to earn their place in Dauntless. I saw the people who would grow up to bully the factionless and beat each other down for the glory and spoils of war. This wasn't Dauntless. This was cowardice.

"Alex and Elijah! In the ring." Peter announced. "Until one of you is no longer able to continue."

The rules had changed, that much we knew. In the year before, no one was offered the option to concede. We had to be willing to travel to the edge of death or be kicked out. No one, not even the Dauntless-borns, knew why the rules had changed.

I prayed for my friend as she went into the ring against a Dauntless born with a smile almost as bright as hers. Neither wanted to fight but both knew they had no choice in it. Peter watched everything, taking notes of everyone's progress or lack thereof. He would knock points off if you looked afraid or flinched at anything. It was incredible that anyone had any points left at this point.

At this point, Elijah swung, planting a hard punch to Alex's jaw, quickly knocking her to the ground. I gave her props for getting up. She even got a few good kicks to his ribs before he picked her up and slammed her to the ground, repeatedly hitting her face until her eyes closed and she was unconscious. It was a quick fight but I could tell Elijah had shown mercy to her. He could have dragged it out, shown the same sadism people like Peter exhibit, and made sure she felt it. I deemed Elijah one of the good Dauntless.

"Peter."

Everyone turned toward the voice as a large man with an eyebrow piercing and tattoos covering his neck entered the training room. To say he was intimidating was a complete and utter understatement. Looking at him was like inviting death inside, as if he could stuff your body with daggers just because he could.

"Eric." Peter said, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as he approached the man. Eric. So he's the one we'd heard about. One of the instructors of last year.

"How's the training going?" Eric asked. "Anyone out yet?"

"Not yet." All I heard was malice in both of their voices.

"I'm disappointed. Thought you'd be able to scare a couple of the cowards away by now." Eric said. "Maybe you aren't hard enough on them, Peter."

I look down at the bruises on my arms, legs, and torso. I am a tornado of purples and blues all blending together in painful bunches where violence has touched me in ways I will not be able to forget. I know I am not the only one. Peter has not gone easy on us and I regret my wish to have had Eric as a trainer instead. Peter is the lesser of two evils, something I never thought I'd think.

Without looking away from Eric's eyes, challenging him with narrow eyes, Peter shouts. "Squealer! Malcom! In the ring now!"

I realized Elijah was next to me when he pats me on the back and whispered good luck to me before I went. I smiled at him and thanked him, both for the luck and for his mercy on Alex. We were all just kids who are trying to survive and climb beyond the bottom of the food chain.

Maybe Peter is doing the same thing. Maybe Eric is the bigger fish who's going to eat him alive if he doesn't keep up. Maybe he's just trying not to get killed like we all are. Maybe he's just like us and that's how it has to be here. For the first time, I don't see Peter as the bad guy.

Once in the ring, I out myself into a fighting stance with my knees bent and my hips forward. Malcolm sneers the same way wolves do before they attack and devour. This is an easy fight for him. He steps forward and flings his fist toward my face, catching my just below my eye. Ignoring the pain in my cheekbones, I curl my hand into a fist like Peter taught me but am caught off guard by a swift kick to the ribs, making me collapse to the ground in a coughing fit.

"Gonna get up, Squealer?" Malcom taunts, quickly stepping toward me to make me flinch but stepping back again. He's toying with me like a cat playing with a mouse before it becomes dinner.

I look over at Peter who is glaring at Malcolm but whose eyes switch to mine. He makes an exasperated motion at me to get up. I do.

Again, curling my fist the way he taught me, I swing forward with a force that surprises me and Malcolm alike, catching him in the jaw. I feel a sickening crack under my knuckles as he stumbles back from the impact, briefly sinking to one knee before popping back up.

"Son of a bitch!" he shouts, putting his arms up to block his face.

I take advantage of his surprise and go for a kick in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He is thrown off balance and sinks to his knee again for a second. It unnerves him, being caught off guard by someone who is so easily overlooked. I catch a glimpse of everyone around me, equally as surprised. Even Eric's mouth is slack with an unmistakable expression of shock. The only one who doesn't look surprised is Peter. As if he knew.

Malcolm catches his breath and lunges at me, catching me around the waist and slamming me to the ground. I hit the ground with him on top of me and just start throwing whatever punches I can, some hitting him and some not. I'm frantic and desperate, grasping at straws I know are not there. The fight is basically over. Blood drips onto my face from Malcolm's nose above me, broken from one of my desperate punches. I beg that I fall unconscious fast.

"Stop playing with her, initiate." Eric's voice is distant and far away.

I see his knuckles fly toward my face, cracking my nose. Before I drift away, there is only red. Burning my eyes, filling my mouth, spilling from my injuries.

I'm only unconscious for about a minute so when they lift me, I can feel everything around me. One arm is under my legs while the other supports my back while my head hangs over the crook of the elbow. The arms are strong, stronger than any of the initiates. Then I hear him.

"You did pretty good, Squealer." It's a low murmur meant only for me to hear but it ignites a fire within my veins, an aching to shove Malcolm to the ground and dig my knee into his face until he's the one being carried off by Peter to the infirmary. "Need some work though." He reminds me.

"Next time." The words slip from my lips before I even realize they've formed. I watch as the hint of a smile tugs at Peter's lips.

"You'll get your chance, Squealer. Nice punches."

I smile, mustering the strength to pick my head up to show that I am not weak and I will not allow this loss to defeat me and that I will rise stronger than I was before. This is what Dauntless is about, learning from your mistakes and using them to make yourself better. Maybe Peter was more Dauntless than I thought after all.

"She's out, Peter." Eric says from behind us. "Done."

Suddenly, Peter sets me on my feet and though every muscle and bone in my body screams under the stress of gravity, I stay upright. "Walk." He instructs me and I do. I walk without assistance the rest of the way out of the training room with every eye, including Eric's, on me. An unbelievable sense of triumph washes over me in cool blue waves, soothing the bruises and injuries that litter my body. I am calm. I am strong. I am Dauntless.

Once out of the training room and the sight of the other's I collapse against Peter. My chest heaves with effort and pain and he holds me upright, allowing me to catch my breath and collect myself. But I know that I am unable to.

"Are you going to walk to the infirmary?" Peter asks. He's giving me a choice.

I shake my head.

"Well, you're gonna have to crawl there then." He says and moves away, letting my body drop to the ground with a sickening thud. He walks back into the training room and I hear him say to Eric, "She's done."

I cringe into a ball just outside the door and let myself cry. In the month it's been since I got here, I haven't allowed myself to cry. It is a sign of weakness and I am weak. I have failed Dauntless initiated, I have failed Peter, and I have failed myself. It seems only fitting to let my built up weakness out at once. The tears gush from my eyes and pour over my cheeks, stinging the split skin that is still bleeding. There is no reason to be afraid of weakness when I am going to live a life consumed by it.

I look down at my knuckles, looking at the split skin filled with calluses and bruises from my hard work training. All for nothing.

Eric's sadistic laugh booms in the room next to me and anger builds in the cavity of my chest. He is the reason Dauntless has gone to shit. It's his fault that Dauntless is filled with greed, corruption, and senseless violence when it should be filled with ordinary acts of bravery, a strong sense of justice, and an unbreakable camaraderie. I will not let this stand.

Slowly, I push myself up to my elbows, grunting with pain and effort. White hot brands touch every part of me as I drag myself toward the supplies closet at the end of the hall that is filled with bandages and other things that patch us temporarily while the real scars are inside, made of fear and desperation and ugly things. With unbelievable effort, I make it but leave a trail of thick red blood in my path.

Opening the closet door, I use it to help my pull myself to my feet, worried that one of my ankles is broken. I think it could be, but then again, I'm no doctor and Erudite textbooks only taught me so much in my time there. But I reach antiseptic and wipe my body of the innocent blood I spilled for the sake of Eric. Carefully, I wrap myself in gauze, securing the fabric against my wounds and hoping that I heal before I die. This'll show Peter. It'll show Eric, too. It'll show all of them.

My walk back down the hallway is a quick one. I start slow with a painful intake of breath to accompany every step. But as my anger builds, so does my determination and I end up running to the door and pulling it open with a force I would not have had earlier, even without the pain and blood still coating me.

Everyone else is at a punching bag, practicing their technique and their fighting moves. Only Eric and Peter turn toward me. Eric frowns and when he narrows his eyes, it makes him look like a weasel. A weasel on steroids, but a weasel nonetheless. Peter smirks and I hope that the glint I see in his eyes is pride, not malice. I am not angry. I am grateful.

"You're done here." Eric says, gesturing toward the door. "You should probably raid the kitchen before you go since it will be a long time until the Abnegation will give anything to the factionless."

"No." Peter intercedes. His voice is not as strong as when he's berating us initiates but it is firm enough for Eric to widen his eyes and look at him.

"You said it yourself, Hayes. Turns out she wasn't cut out for this."

"She might not be." Peter shrugs but takes a step closer to me, sizing me up to see if I'll back down from this. "But if the rest of her days are like this, maybe she'll make it through initiation."

Eric grunts and shakes his head, walking away without a word. I am grateful again that we have Peter instead of Eric. I can't imagine what he would have done to the initiates under his watch. I wouldn't be surprised if he dangled one of them over the chasm or something.

"Go." Peter says to me, shoving me toward one of the punching bags.

I stumble and fall to my knees but rise again and walk away from him. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think I may have seen the ghost of a smile on his face.

"I was worried you were out."

It's Elijah.

"Yeah, well, I didn't really feel like spending the rest of my life driving the buses and living off of other people's scraps. I came here to be Dauntless." I say.

"Well, I think that's pretty cool. I think Dauntless has been missing people like you and me for far too long now." He smiles and hits me with his elbow playfully. "We should spar sometime."

I nod my head. "Yeah, I'd like that."

"I'm sorry about your friend, Alex." He apologizes. "I didn't want to hurt her but it's not like I really had a choice."

I nod again. "We're all just trying to survive here."

"Just gonna stand around and chat or are you going to make up for your loss today?" I jump at the words right in my ear, an angry bark from Peter. I hadn't realized he'd crept so close to us.

I don't say anything and kick the bag with the side of my foot, sending my nerves ablaze with resistance and pressure but I wave it off and keep hitting until I feel he's left me.

"I don't think Alex will be mad at you." I say to Elijah/ "She's going to understand."

He bites his lip and nods. "Thank you. I just wish the Candor weren't so accurate in calling us the cruelest faction. It's really changed from when I was a kid."

"You're still a kid." I point out. "Hell, we're all still kids. And we're being trained as gladiators to kill each other. I don't want to be the only one that believes in ordinary acts of bravery."

"You're not. I believe in them, too." Elijah's presence is comforting. I am glad that the cruelty here is real and not just a manifestation of my weakness. The issues are with Dauntless, not with me.

"Peter's looking at you." Elijah points out with a chuckle. I turn my head and sure enough, Peter's eyes are on me and they flit away as soon as our eyes connect.

I grin.


	3. Chapter 3

It was late at night and not many hours remained until the sun began its journey above the city for the day. I stood at a punching bag in the training room, curling my fists and assaulting it with as much strength as I could put behind my small frame. My muscles ached from the effort and my body was covered in a thick layer of sweat. It felt good to be this out of breath.

"What are you doing here, Squealer?"

The voice makes me jump out of my skin, startling me thoroughly out of the zone I created for myself by myself here. Peter. I didn't realize how stealthy he could be when he wanted to, practically appearing out of thin air mere inches away from my ear. I don't answer him and continue hitting the punching bag as if he never said anything in the first place.

"Not talking to big bad Peter?" He asks, still standing behind me. I don't need to see his shit eating grin to know that there is one.

No answer. Not even a glance in his direction. I won't give him the satisfaction right now.

His hands wrap hard around my waist, forcefully lifting me off the ground and twisting my torso painfully so I'm facing him before dropping me back on my feet in front of him. It's unnerving to be manhandled by him but also exhilarating in a fucked up, distorted way that seems to be the norm here. In Erudite, physical contact wasn't favored, mainly because most of us were too busy with our noses in books, our eyes on a screen, or our bodies in a lab. There was just never any time for it. But here, in Dauntless, there's no shortage of it. It's exciting, new, and utterly terrifying.

"Look at me."

A shudder rushes through me and the hair on my arm sticks up straight and I drag out the seconds as long as I can before I have to do what he says. There is something so contradicting about him, the way he looks like the heavens created him to save the world yet he acts like he's out to destroy it. It's a battle between what's on the inside and what's on the outside and looks are entirely too deceiving here.

I meet his eyes, trying to sculpt my expression to look as though I'm a hardened, angry fighter with nothing to lose. By the look on his face and the way he lifts his eyebrows, I can tell that I'm really not convincing.

"What are you doing here?" he repeats his question.

Being under his gaze is like having my wrists trapped in handcuffs. His eyes are green and they are far too pretty to belong to someone so cruel. My Erudite instincts are telling me to run as fast as I can but my Dauntless tendencies are telling me to stand there and fight my way through this.

"Practicing." I wince at the break in my voice. It makes me look weak.

"What was that?" Peter said with a condescending tone, bending down toward me like he was talking to a child. "I couldn't hear you through your squeaking."

I look away and suddenly become entirely too interested with the blood splatter on the floor next to us. My breath hitches in my throat and I force it out, focusing only on my breathing. I didn't think things would be this hard.

"Say it again."

"I'm practicing." I say, louder than before.

"And you think hitting a bag is gonna help you at all? Maybe if you hit it hard enough, it'll beat the shit out of you and suddenly you'll stop being a weak little mouse who can't even look me in the eye when I'm talking to her?" As he speaks, his voice gets louder and angrier. Every syllable is a fresh, raw slap to the face and his laughter, booming and echoing around the room, is the last nail on the coffin.

At his words, I jerk my head so I look at him straight in the eyes. I refuse to break eye contact this time and narrow my eyes to show him that I'm angry and I want to be in Dauntless. My eyes water as we stare at each other, mentally struggling for dominance and I won't blink until my eyes burst into flames. He breaks first, shaking his head but I am still the weaker one though I have won this small victory. He's still the big fish and I'm still the bait.

"I'm doing whatever I can to get into Dauntless. I don't care if you laugh." I say, crossing my arms over my chest like a shield. I hope he leaves so I can continue this in peace. Alone.

Peter shakes his head again, I wish he would stop doing that, and walks away from me toward the center of the room. I think he's heading for the door but he stops in the middle of the room, dead center in the ring where initiates are forced to beat each other senseless every day to survive.

"Coming?" He calls behind him, not even turning to face me.

I'm not an idiot; I know that without his help, I'm as good as dead. My legs numbly walk me over to where he stands, completely unprepared but willing to do anything to belong here. When I reach him, he's already in a fighting stance and I try to copy what he's doing. I bend my knees a certain way and make sure my hips are in line. My arms are parallel to each other in front of my face, ready to block whatever hits should come to my face.

"Good." He says. "Fighting stance is down. That's basic, so don't pat yourself on the back just yet."

Jerk.

"Now, I want you to throw a punch at my hands." He tells me.

He stands with is feet apart and his hands in front of him, elbows bent. Immediately, I throw a punch as hard as I can, connecting with his bare palm. I almost fly forward with the momentum and I stumble, off balance.

"Plant your feet in the ground. If you do that in the ring, a good fighter will take advantage of the fact you look like you've had a few too many." Peter makes a drinking motion with his hand. I surprise myself by laughing.

I plant myself in the ground, hoping that my solid foundation prevent the rest of me from flying when my fist does. I square my shoulders and stretch my fingers before getting it into a fist again. I try again and this time I don't stumble. Instead, I stand strong and go for a few more with the same triumphant result.

"Good to know that Erudite didn't waste precious resources on you during your sixteen years there." Peter tells me. I wince when he mentions my old faction.

"What faction did you come from?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"Candor." He responds after deliberating whether or not he should tell me. They take the motto 'faction before blood' very seriously here in Dauntless.

"Do you still think of yourself as an honest person?"

"I was never honest, not even in Candor." Peter says. I don't know why I know this, but I know he's serious.

"You were a Candor and you lied?" I asked, incredulously. That hadn't occurred to my before. "Why'd you do it?"

"Because I could." Peter tells me. "Because it was easy to get what I wanted."

"So that's why you're such a jerk all the time." I say, kicking myself as soon as the words are out of my mouth. "To get what you want?"

To my surprise, Peter laughs. "You could say that's the reason."

"And I can trust that you're teaching me the right technique and not trying sabotage my next big fight?" It's not that I thought he was really doing that, but I was surprised. I can't picture him being in Candor. Maybe that's because Candor aren't usually innately cruel. Loud, maybe, but not usually cruel.

"You can't trust me for anything." Peter says, suddenly harsh. "I don't owe you anything."

I shrink back a bit and rub my knuckles with my palms, looking down intently at the bruises so I don't have to look at his angry green eyes. I feel like I've invaded his privacy for some reason, like knowing that little bit of his past suddenly made me responsible for whatever happened to him. I know that's not true, but there's something wrong here.

"Square up." He commands and I snap into position as fast as I can. "If you want to be ready for your fight, you've got to learn to take hits."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You're small and have no muscle." Peter points out.

"Wow, that's really a confidence booster."

"I'm not here to pat you on the back and give you a gold star. I'm here to make you a warrior." Peter barks. "If you can't make hits to win fights, then at least learn to take them so you can last longer and wear your opponent out."

I nod my head, absorbing the information. I'd have to turn myself into a human punching bag that can outlast my opponent since I probably won't be able to beat them with sheer strength.

"Sounds simple enough." I say, making sense of it.

"Does it?" Peter asks.

A sharp pain bursts across my sternum and it takes me a moment to realize that it came from his fist connecting with my chest. I fall into a coughing fit but keep eye contact, trying to anticipate his next move. He takes a step and I try to take the pause to throw my own punch but he catches my arm and twists it to the point where I'm screaming, praying that it will just snap already, but it doesn't.

I kick behind me and hit him in the shin and I can hear the sharp intake of breath from him that lets me know I've caused him pain. I keep going for the same spot, hearing an annoyed groan before he lets go of me. My arm dangles at my side, completely devoid of feeling. I am suddenly afraid of him.

Peter lets me regain my balance and go back into the beginning stance before coming at me again, this time relentlessly hitting my face with his fists until his hands are covered in my blood. I hit him as hard as I can but it's as if I'm hitting a brick wall: it has no effect on him whatsoever. He is stronger than I anticipated he'd be.

"Had enough yet, Squealer?" Peter asks.

I shake my head and even though my skull feels as though it's about to shatter, I don't want to stop. The pain is freeing, a part of everyday life here and I want to get used to it. I want to belong here.

"Come on, you look pretty beat up." He urges, gesturing toward the door.

"Gee, I wonder whose fault that is." I say, sarcastically. "I want to keep going."

"Are you even human?" Peter asks, shaking his head but I can see in his eyes that there is some hope for me yet.

We fought in circles for a while. He attacked while I made futile attempts to defend myself, though I did get a few good punches in. Peter hit harder than any of the other initiates and I knew if I could last this long with him, I'd be able to outlast whoever I needed to be above the line by the end of initiation. The thought made my heart soar every time I thought about it. There was a chance.

I got a particularly good punch in, my fist connecting right into Peter's eye enough to make him wince for a fraction of a second. I smiled to myself when I saw that because it made me feel strong. I felt at home here.

"That was a pretty good punch, Squealer." He said. "For someone who should've been a Stiff."

I feel a fist to the same place on my face that I hit him and fall to the ground, clutching at my eye. It hurt more than I was expecting it to and the sensation was like a thousand needles being poked into my retina at the same time. Still holding my face, I tried to stand up. However, to my dismay, Peter's foot was planted on my chest, preventing me from going anywhere.

"You giving up, Squealer?"

I shook my head. "No, I want to keep going."

Peter shook his head and took his foot off of my chest. Instead of getting back into the stance, he started walking away from me, toward the door to the training room. "Go to bed." He called to me from behind him.

"What?" I ask, still dazed from too many hits to the head.

"Go to bed!" He said, louder but without breaking his stride.

"Why? I want to keep going!"

"I get it, I get it! You're gonna keep getting back up until I kill you, but can we save it for after you make it into Dauntless?" Peter asks before disappearing out of the door and leaving the room.

Reluctantly, I peel myself off of the ground, careful not to look at the pool of my blood that covers the ring entirely. I trudge to the dorms, hoping that I don't look nearly as bad as I think I do. My bed here has never looked so inviting and so much like a part of home. My mind is so awake and my body so dead that sleep is an uphill battle but I make it to the dreamland that is soon to be filled with nightmares once we get to stage two of initiation.

{***}

The next day, I felt like someone rammed a sledgehammer through my and then shoved me under a train car. I had cuts and bruises all over me that would turn into scars but I wore them proudly, as a symbol of my newfound home and the new sense of myself I had discovered the night before. Never before had I looked so bad, but felt so good.

The hustle and bustle of the Dauntless compound was surprisingly comforting, people ran past and roared with laughter at a joke their friends made. Though they weren't as honest as the Candor, the Dauntless definitely had a lot to say most of the time. I even found myself speaking more often, becoming more natural at using my voice so it didn't squeak whenever I used it. The constant chatter didn't even stop during meals, even if someone had a mouthful of food. Elijah had taught me that very quickly.

"Have you seen the scoreboard?" Elijah asked, shoving a fistful of spaghetti into his mouth. Alex jokes that he should have shovels instead of hands when we eat.

"Yeah!" Alex seems happy with her position which confuses me because she is below the line. "I think if I stop flinching every time I think Peter is gonna punch me in the face, I could probably work myself above the line!"

Elijah pats her on the back, reassuring her gently. "You'll make it into Dauntless, just gotta beat the snot out of somebody first."

"Are you above the line, Lana?" Alex asks.

"Yeah, last time I checked. Somewhere in the middle, can't remember the exact number."

"You've been improving a lot lately." Elijah commented. "Been hitting the gym like I told you?"

"Something like that." I smirk.

Alex and Elijah look at each other, raising their eyebrows before looking back at me with the same quizzical expression. They know something's up with me but I don't want to tell them. I hope they don't ask. I know it's selfish of me but I feel as though Peter is my secret weapon for getting into Dauntless and I want to keep the advantage, even from my friends. I hope they make it.

Elijah will. I don't know about Alex.

"Okay." They say simultaneously.

I see Peter across the cafeteria and smirk to myself. There's a dark ring of purple and blue around his eye that I can see all the way from here.

I did that.


	4. Chapter 4

"Welcome to Dauntless."

Eric's voice boomed out over the crowd, resounding around the large room. Cheers erupted all around me, old and new members alike. It was amazing that a meeting could turn into a party so quickly here. It was one of the nicer things about being part of this. There was no shortage of celebration here.

I couldn't believe it. I'd passed Dauntless initiation.

People around me were jumping and things quickly flourished into a happy kind of chaos of unquenchable celebration by those of us who made it into Dauntless. Newfound members were laughing, crying, and hugging each other in pride and relief at the fact they had made it here, that they found somewhere to belong in the most ruthless place of a ruthless society. I tried to put the despair of those who didn't out of my mind and lock it in a box where I wouldn't have to see it.

Previously established members started lifting the new ones onto their shoulders, elevating them above the crowd and creating a community with a sense of pride in who they picked to be a part of them. I had to hand it to them, they're happiness was infectious. It was the same laughter and joy that made every kid in the other factions want a piece of what they had. But it was hard to have their Dauntless cake and eat it, too.

Someone's arms wrapped around my waist and thrust me above them until I sat on their shoulders, looking above the crowd of people. Hands held my hips to keep me steady among the chaos that infected every spirit in the room, including mine. It felt nice to be on someone's shoulders and depend on them to keep me from falling. Looking around, I felt like I could trust these people. I first thought of them as cruel and though there is an abundance of corruption, I have learned here that reality is not as obvious as it was in Erudite.

I looked below me, wanting to know who it was that hoisted me up and held me above them, giving me the gift of triumph that raised me high above what I believed I could be when I first got here. I don't know why I was surprised when I saw who it was.

"Peter?" I ask, blinking my eyes in shock. He looks up with a grin on his face.

"Congratulations, Squealer!" He shouts up to me above the noise, his grip tightening on me as we move with the crowd as they make their way to the Pit to celebrate with drinks and dancing. I can't wait. "You're pretty much unrecognizable from the mouse I helped out of the net on the first day. Though, you're still pretty mousy. I'd keep hitting the training room and building up more muscle if I were you."

I roll my eyes at him. Pretty much every compliment is a backhanded one when it comes to him.

"How do you like the view?" he asks.

"How's yours?" I retorted, giddy with the infectious joy emitted by everyone in my faction.

"I feel shorter." He says. "Probably because I'm hunched. You're heavy."

I don't have to see his face to know he's smirking.

We all reach the Pit and spread out throughout the large space. Music blares, a series of indistinguishable sounds that everyone is miraculously moving to the beat of. Flasks are being waved everywhere, people taking swigs and whooping still. I have never been so proud to be a part of something so big.

Peter sets me back on the ground, helping me swing my legs and land on my feet. Being on the ground was slightly intimidating as people got drunker and sloppier with their movements. I dodged the flying hand of a man who was trying to dance but nearly took my eye out by accident. Then he lost his balance and fell, taking me sprawling to the ground with him. I never realized how alcohol makes someone so out of control. He mumbled a lazy apology and Peter shoves him out of the way, mumbling something about drunken bastards. It surprises me.

"Thanks. " I mumble, brushing myself off.

"If you're gonna stick around, you better learn to deal with this type of shit." He responds. "You want a drink?"

I don't respond at first. "I've never had alcohol before."

"That wasn't my question." He taps his foot impatiently. "I asked if you wanted some."

Be brave, be Dauntless. "Yes."

He nods and disappears into the crowd. A feeling builds up in my chest as I find myself amongst Dauntless I don't know, slurring their words and wobbling on their feet. The anxiety bubbles within me and I search for a familiar face anywhere. Maybe Elijah or Alex was around here somewhere and could help lessen the intimidation of the large and drunken crowd. I almost forgot about Peter entirely.

"You look so lost without me." Peter comments from behind me, making jump in surprise. "Here"

He hands me a cup filled with a strange colored liquid that smells too sour and too sweet all at once. I hesitate and make careful movements while I take a sip, my face immediately scrunching up in equal parts exhilaration and disgust.

Peter lets out a whooping laugh that makes my face burn red in embarrassment. "You'll get used to it. God knows I did. Cheers." He touches his cup to mine and throws his head back, allowing for the substance to quickly run down his throat. I mimic his movements and throw the liquid back in the same manner, my throat burning and my body fighting me against it. Peter nods his head in approval.

"Loosen up or I'll have to start calling you Stiff." He tells me.

I shudder at the derogatory name for the Abnegation. He puts a hand on my shoulders and digs his fingers into the muscle, rubbing harsh circles until I relax a little. I didn't realize how tense I was until I feel the ache in my muscles when I relax. It feels as though I have whiplash from going from extreme excitement to anxiety in less than a few seconds. It's my best bet to go back the former.

"I'm not a Stiff." I say a little too defensively.

"Prove it." He challenges me.

I stand there, frozen. How do I prove something like that? We're not in training where I can get in the ring and prove that I will do whatever it takes to secure my place even if that means beating the snot out of the person standing in front of me. In practice, it is easy to prove I'm brave. Out here, it is astronomically harder.

"Am I supposed to get drunk or something?" I ask. It is nice to not have to know all the answers now.

"No." he answers, his hands on my shoulders dig in painfully but keep my muscles from tightening again. "They call that stuff liquid courage. Whatever you do when you're drunk doesn't count as courage. It's cheating."

"So I have to prove myself to you, yet again, that I'm brave and I don't even get alcohol to prove it. Doesn't seem fair."

"You never stop proving yourself in Dauntless."

A woman with blue hair and a piercing below her lip tripped and slammed right into Peter who stood like a brick wall. His face morphed into disgust as he glared at her until she was out of his sight. The disgust didn't leave his face even as he looked around the room at everyone celebrating.

"Not a people person?" I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Not a happy person." He tells me and spins on his heel, pushing his way through the crowd.

He didn't tell me to follow him but I do, using my own smaller hands to make my way through seemingly immovable walls of people. I am so focused on keeping up with Peter and weaving in and out of the crowd that I don't even realize where we're going or wonder where we're going to end up. I don't wonder if he knows I'm still behind him at this point. Eventually, I found myself standing outside an apartment building that towers above my head, undoubtedly where Peter lives. Looking up at it, I estimate it has to be at least forty or so stories high.

When my head comes back to earth, my eyes are met by Peter's. He has his hand on his hips and an arrogant smile on his face. "Couldn't get enough of me, huh? You just had to tail me all the way back to my place of residence."

He takes a few steps closer to me. I don't know whether I prefer having witnesses around or not. There is something utterly dangerous about Peter. He has shown his ruthlessness and penchant for cruelty, but he has also shown me the best parts of myself and is the main reason I stand today as a member of Dauntless and not out there with the factionless. I decide that I need to learn to live with danger and maybe even like it. This could be what he meant by me proving that I'm not a Stiff.

"I'm proving it."

"Proving what?"

"That I'm not a Stiff."

He barks out a laugh and I can smell the alcohol on his breath. "I already know you're not a Stiff. Who crawls out on a broken ankle and comes back to training without going to the infirmary?" He recalls the memory fondly. "Stupid? Yes. Stiff? Absolutely not."

He turns and I can't help myself when I blurt out.

"You're confusing as hell!"

His head whips back around to me. "What?"

"How can someone be so nice to me and mean to me at the same time? It's an oxymoron! You're so passive aggressive, it's making my head spin!"

I would bet my life on the fact that it's the alcohol that's making me say that because it's such a dangerous thing to say. Even as the words leave me, I wish I could take them back. I sound like a complete baby.

I see the words turning over in his mind and my heart speeds up in fear of his reaction. He doesn't really have a reputation of being a gentle soul who handles other's feelings with care. My pulse is so loud that it thumps in my ears and makes me think it was stupid to even think of following here in the first place. Hell, I should have never said yes when he asked me if I wanted a drink.

"Welcome to Dauntless, Lana."

Just as I register that he just used my actual name for the first time, Peter makes a sudden motion, his large hands taking me by the shoulders as he engages me in an electric kiss that shocks my body, pumping me full of electricity and adrenaline. Without thinking, I kiss him back, my fingers finding my way to his hair while I feel his right hand move to hold me at the small of my back.

Just like that, he's gone.

He turns away from me and slams the door to his building in my face before I stop feeling the sensation of him against me. My eyes are wild and my face flustered, an angry blush spreading across my face. I can see him inside, pressing the button to his floor number. Before the doors slide closed, he waves to me with that arrogant smirk on his lips, the same lips that were pressed to my own only seconds before. He's mocking me.

I start running. I don't even know where I am at this point but I keep running until my legs and chest burn so bad I have to stop. Finally, it hits me that I have no idea where I am since this is the first time I've been in this part of the Dauntless sector. And I have no clue how I'm gonna find my way back to the dormitories I've learned to call my home in these past few weeks..

"Lana?"

I turn, wondering who here would even know my name. It's Christina.

"Hey… Christina…" I say between heavy breaths, my chest refusing to cooperate and recover faster than it is.

"Jeez, what happened to you?" She asks with a laugh, hitting me playful with the side of her elbow. She leads me to sit down on the curb of the sidewalk, keeping a hand on my arm so I don't pass out right then and there.

"Peter."

Her face goes from joking to dark in a matter of moments, a shadow ghosting over her features with disdain. "What did he do?"

I shake my head at her. I'm too embarrassed to explain my stupidity and the fact that I'm actually hurt by what he did to me. I refuse to have feeling for someone who was my trainer just this morning before the initiation process was complete.

"Come on, he's a dickhead. Always was, always will be." She tells me, trying to lighten the mood again. It helps.

"How long have you known him?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"All my life. Hated his guts since before we could walk."

"Were you both in Dauntless before?"

"Candor." She pats my head like a sister comforting a sister. "Which explains why he says whatever comes to mind, even if it hurts the other person. Perfect for training the little cherubs that have been coddled their whole life. Other than that, it just sucks."

"And he's always been like that?"  
"An asshole, yeah." Christina watches me carefully, examining my face that is covered with bruises from training and tears from the ordeal moments ago. "After this, you don't even have to see him anymore. Whatever he did, whatever he said to you, it doesn't even matter. You can forget about it."

She wipes the tears from my cheeks with her thumb. I am grateful she has shown me for a second what it's like to have a sister in Dauntless. And she is right: training is over and I won't be forced into a room with Peter every single day to relive the humiliation of tonight.

"Christina?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you help me find my way back to the Pit?"

She chuckles and stands up, offering me her arm. "Sure thing, Lana. You ever need someone to beat Peter up, call me."

Despite everything, I laugh. "Thanks, Christina."


	5. Chapter 5

"Lana."

I whip my head to the right. The seat next empty last I checked but was now being occupied by the last person I wanted to see. Peter. I could see Elijah and Alex sitting together a few tables over, giving googly eyes to each other while I tried to signal them to help me. No such luck. Even looking at him brought a new wave of humiliation over me, making my cheeks heat up red like a pizza oven. It had been a little over two weeks since our little ordeal had occurred and I'd done a pretty good job of avoiding him. Until now apparently.

"What?" I scowl at him. "Using a habit of using my actual name as if I'm an actual human being?"

"You've graduated." Peter tells me with mock applause. I feel his arms snake around my shoulders and pull me in until I slam against his side. "You're all grown up."

"You know, I thought my reward for getting into Dauntless would be not to see you anymore." I keep my eyes on the food in front of me.

"Don't tell me you didn't enjoy our late night training sessions." Peter laughs, his face inching closer to mine. "All that sweat and blood and _tension…_ "

"I didn't say that. I just thought I'd be able to get the hell away from you."

"Did Christina tell you that?"

I slam my fork down on the table. "How did you know that?" I demand.

Peter just smirks at me.

"Did you follow me?" I feel humiliated all over again, knowing he saw me in such an emotionally vulnerable state. "Let me get this straight: you kissed me, slammed the door in my face, and then followed me around while I was lost in a faction I've only been a real part of for a day?"

He shrugs. "I wanted to see if the rumors I heard were true."

"What rumors?"

"That you," he whispers and pauses for dramatic effect. " _Like_ me."

My mouth drops into a perfect 'o,' completely appalled at what he just said to me. He was just playing these stupid, childish games with me to amuse himself and feed his own fat ego. I didn't want to have any part of it because honestly, his head was big enough as it was! I pull away, or try to, to get away from him but he encloses me in a tight grasp that is impossible to get out of. I was afraid that at any second, I'd snap and start screaming at him until I dropped dead right there and then.

"Stop squirming." His voice is low but full of authority, prompting me to freeze. He doesn't let go of me.

Something about his voice, the way it deepens and the way a twinge of anger appears in it puts me under a spell that is almost impossible to break. Despite what I've tried to convince myself, the one-on-one training sessions did mean something to me. They connected me to this place and to him. Though Peter Hayes is a selfish jerk, he did stick his neck out for me and is the primary reason that I'm sitting here eating food instead of huddled around a fire with the factionless. I saw something in him that was different than the Peter who tortured initiates or the Peter who kissed me and left. I saw something that resembled humanity.

"Come on," he says with a cocky grin I've come to associate exclusively with him. "Let's save our first fight as a couple for another day."

"Couple?" I almost spit the water out of my mout. "Are you insane or just a sociopath?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me there's not even a little part of you that's a little curious as to how this would turn out?" Peter tells me, playing on my Erudite tendencies. Sixteen years worth of habits can't be shaken in a few mere months. "Look at me and tell me you're going to pass up the chance of a lifetime."

I wouldn't admit it, but I was scared. Peter was someone so unattainable, so powerful, and so utterly Dauntless that the possibility of something like this hadn't crossed my mind because I hadn't allowed it. It was illogical. But then again, this wasn't Erudite and things didn't need to be logical here. They had to be brave. So I decided to be brave.

I looked Peter in the eye. "I'm passing up the chance of a lifetime. I don't want this."

The most Dauntless thing I could think to do was tell him no. I could tell he didn't expect it and from our conversations, I knew that he was used to getting what he wanted through manipulation and other means.

"Liar." He said, calm.

"Prove it." I spit back at him.

"If you didn't want this, you wouldn't have been so hurt by what I did a few weeks ago, you wouldn't have wasted your time avoiding me, and you wouldn't be as red as a tomato right now." He says, matter-of-factly. "Should I go on?"

I want to punch him in the face.

"So what? You think you I should just fall to my knees in front of you and beg you to take me right here?" I ask, only making myself blush more.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt…"

"You know what?" I say, sticking my tongue out to the side in deep thought. "I'm having second thoughts about what I said earlier."

"Oh?" His eyes light up with intrigue.

I turn to him and take his face in my hands, feeling his strong jaw beneath my fingertips. I plant my lips on his, pressing myself against him. One of his hands is on the small of my back while the other tangles itself in my hair. Just when he's about to deepen the kiss, I twist away from him and slip out of his grip and catching him off guard. Flipping my hair on the way out, I strut out of the cafeteria and leave him at the table while he's completely and utterly dumbfounded.

Before I leave, I turn to see Peter throw a butter knife. It hits the wall and sticks straight out, a testament to his anger and frustration. He kicks at the ground and lets out a yell of pure rage. I see others in the area freeze and watch with horror which tells me that no one wants to be on the other end of Peter's wrath. But I don't care. He's about to storm out when he sees me standing at the doorway, watching him with an amused smile lighting up my face. I hope he's filled with hate at being on the receiving end of the infamous smirk.

I catch his green eyes in my blue ones before I leave and wink at him as I go. His face is beet red.

It feels good to be on the other end of his games.

During the next few weeks, I didn't speak to him. I think he was the one avoiding me now after his public humiliation at my hands. It felt good to have turned the tables around on him the way someone would if they weren't afraid. I was afraid but I felt like I'd proved something to myself and to him. There was an unmistakable fire within me that I couldn't put out, flames licking the insides of my ribs and prompting me to do something I never thought I'd do.

I'd see him in the Pit or walking by the Chasm every once in a while over the few weeks but he seemed always to be going in the other direction. It had the appearance of cowardice, a bully like him running away from a small girl like me. But I knew better than to think that. He was stalling, biding his time until he could come up with a plan to get back at me for what I did. It would turn into a vicious cycle of revenge, us circling one another and trying to outsmart the other before they killed us. And I was oddly fine with that.

"What happened with you and Peter the other day?" Elijah winked and nudged me with his elbow. I laughed.

"Nothing." I shrug, throwing him a knowing smile.

"Nothing!" Alex exclaims in my ear. "Nothing, my ass! You had your tongues down each other's throats!"

I shrug again. "Giving him a taste of his own medicine, I guess."

"Well what happened in the first place?" Elijah prompts me and I can see the curiosity in their eyes. This is killing them. "You can't be so vague."

"It's inhumane." Alex points out.

"Well," I say elusively, throwing my hair behind me with faux confidence that makes my friends laugh. "I'll tell you when you're older and more mature."

"And here this way wicked comes." Alex points out.

I glance over my shoulder to the direction she's looking at. The dark gleaming hair and long bridged nose comes toward me. I don't fully appreciate the way he walks until now, with his shoulders squared and his arms loose. His arms and hips swing confidently in perfect synchronicity that gives the air of unbreakable confidence. And he's coming this direction.

"Can I steal your friend for a while?" Peter addresses Alex and Elijah instead of me. "I promise I'll have her home by midnight."

Elijah and Alex both nod their heads too quickly, intimidated by Peter's presence now that he was right here. They talked a big game when there were about a hundred yards between them but they reminded me of puppies with tails between their legs now. No doubt flashbacks of training and Peter's beady eyes calculating their every move crossed their minds. Peter smirked, knowing they were spooked. I hit his arm with the back of my hand and shot him a glare.

"Do whatever you want, man." Elijah's voice shook as he spoke.

My head whipped around to him. "What?" I asked, my eyes wide. "Thanks for nothing, Eli!"

Peter took hold of my wrist and dragged me along through the crowd. I felt like a child who was caught misbehaving and was now being berated by a parent. His grip seemed to get tighter and tighter as we traveled further from my friends. He was walking so fast that I tripped over my feet multiple times, slamming into his back. That didn't slow him down at all.

"Where are we going?" I ask, out of breath.

"You'll find out." Peter said, almost cheerfully. He was up to something. "You're little stunt's been driving me insane the past few weeks."

"In a good way or a bad way?" I ask.

He grunts. Bad.

"Can't say I regret it." I chew at my bottom lip as he continues to drag me along for his own ride.

"You will."

I don't want to admit it, but that scares me. More than Eric's cold voice when he told me I was out. I have not known him long or well, but I know that Peter's games are not always harmless and I really should have thought of that before I engaged him. I should have known that inviting him in would be like inviting the Devil to live in my home.

"Oh." I whisper when I see where we're heading.

"Yeah," Peter agrees with me. "Oh."  
I can see ahead of me is the Chasm and we're going straight toward it. Peter's feet move faster than before and I trip, slamming straight into his back, my nose pressed against his shoulder blade. He doesn't wait for me to get back up as he quite literally drags me toward the death trap. I remember a man named Four telling us that the Chasm's purpose is to remind us of the fine line between bravery and stupidity. I know the next moments are going to be more on the stupid side.

"Peter." I say with a warning tone in my voice though I know it won't help anything.

"Quiet."

I don't know why I listen to him but my voice falls silent. My veins pump cold blood through my veins, making me shiver uncontrollably. My mouth is dry and my hands are clammy, both sensations that make my stomach sick with disgust. I wish I'd never met Peter.

"Usually, I'd think of something original." Peter informs me. A malicious smile adorns his face, reaching his eyes with vicious glee. "But this time, I think I'm gonna have to pull an Eric."

I don't have a chance to ask myself what he means by that when Peter lifts me by my arm and throws me over the railing, dangling over the Chasm. I scream so loud I hope that someone hears me but I know they won't help. My wrist throbs from pain already.

"I'm going to make you hang here and contemplate what a bitch you've been." Peter says, his voice husky. Something strains in my stomach and I notice how his lips get tight when he says that.

Peter lets go of me and I hold onto the ledge with both of my hands as tightly as I can. My knuckles turn an angry sort of white, a white that was the exact color of desperation. At first, the pain was not great as the adrenaline rushed through me. My heartbeat was loud enough that I could focus on it without much trouble blocking everything else out. After a while, my heart blended into the background with the sound of the roaring water below, crashing against the sharp rocks.

After a few minutes, the pain started. Sharp pangs ran along my arms, making me groan with pain.

"Are you afraid of me?" Peter asks.

I know he wants me to say yes. "No." I tell him.

"Well then." Peter steps forward and the toe of his shoe rests on top of my fingertips. "I guess you wouldn't be afraid if I did this."

I refuse to let him know how weak I feel. He has seen me vulnerable and used that to gain what he wanted and I won't let him have it. He can have me but he can't have my pride.

My arms soon start to feel like jelly and I wobble as though my arms are filled with gelatin. The pain is excruciating and a scream through gritted teeth, hoping Christina would walk by and push him over the railing. I know that I can't hold on for much longer. If I depend on my pride, I will slip from the ledge and die. Unfortunately, if I want to live, I have to rely on Peter.

"Peter, it hurts." I say, whispering. I'm afraid that if I raise my voice, my arms will give way. "It really hurts."

He takes his foot off of my fingers and sits next to me, his legs dangling off the Chasm. I look up at him with sad eyes and he leans in close to my face.

"Beg me."

I feel his breath on my lips and I glance to them for a split second, forgetting where I am. My hands go slack for a moment and I gasp, regaining my grip from before.

"Peter, please…" I say, weakness coating my voice like a toxic glue. "Please, it hurts so bad. I don't to die."

"Close, but no dice."

"Please, Peter!" My voice gets louder. "I don't want to die!"

I mistakenly look down below me at the sharp rocks that look like teeth and the roaring water that crashes against them. Falling would mean a very painful and slow death, nothing I wanted to experience in this life. If I wanted to die young, I'd take a bullet in battle. But I would not choose this end.

"I'll do anything, Peter, please!" I hate myself for sounding so desperate, so weak.

I feel pressure around my wrists as he pulls me up and over the railing back to where safety lies. I collapse against him, gasping and desperately trying to catch my breath. He pulls me again, choosing my movements like a ragdoll as he holds me hostage against a wall.

He's so close, I can feel his heartbeat against me. A pang moves through my stomach and down my spine. I glance at his lips again and remember how soft they were. He feels like an angel but I know he's a Devil. When I look back up to his eyes, I know he caught me staring. "All you had to do was ask."

Peter's lips are as soft as I remember, meshing with my own. I cling to him for safety, the only thing separating me from life with my feet on the ground and death at the bottom of the Chasm. My hands cling to his arms as they make a cage around me, holding me against the wall. It feels scandalous to be this close to him and want him so much when he had done so little to warrant it. Something about him preserving my life drew me to him more than before, even though he was the one who put my life in danger in the first place.

"See, this really wasn't so bad, was it?" Peter breathes in my ear, panting almost as hard as I was. "And it really isn't too hard to make you beg, I'll have to keep that in mind."

I don't answer verbally and instead take the collar of his shirt in my hands, bringing him forward to me again. I picture our lips crashing like the water against the sharp rocks. I feel like this man is going to kill me and I don't care.

I don't care.


	6. Chapter 6

"This is what you want?" the woman asks me. "Choose wisely, this is permanent. There's no going back after we start."

I nod and look it over again, tossing the thoughts around in my brain.

"Not that I don't like your idea. I just don't want to do something you'll regret." There's a knowing look in her eyes as if the meaning goes deeper than just the tattoo I'm about to get on my arm.

"I'm sure about this." And I am. It's next logical step and it connects me to my Erudite roots. This is the next step to fitting in around here. Pretty much every person here has been under the needle at some point whether it is tattoos or piercings. I decided to start with a tattoo but I wouldn't mind a couple of piercings here and there. Even though I hated him, I had to admit that Eric's eyebrow piercing looked more than good.

I'm in the tattoo shop sitting in a gleaming black chair that squishes when I move. Neon lights are strategically placed to showcase intricate artworks that I've seen on countless of the other members of my faction. Though they are brave, the Dauntless aren't known for their originality.

"I'll be right with you." The tattoo artist, I think her name is Tori, goes to one of the back rooms and leaves me in the front of the shop by myself.

I hear the door open but don't look over, too fascinated by a picture of a dragon, sleek and powerful. It's admirable. I find another picture along the lines of what I'm getting that is a geometric pattern. Every line is precise and clean, creating a maze of lines that is utterly perfect and satisfying to look at. Every angle is symmetrical with its counterpart the way life should be. I'm sure that if the Erudite measured the lines and angles with their rulers and protractors, everything would check out according to their ever reaching standards.

I know who walked into the shop by the way his breath feels against my ear, a sensation I've become familiar with over the past few months. It's been exactly one year since I joined Dauntless and I'm commemorating the success with a tattoo.

"I think my name would look really good right here." Peter's voice breaks me out of my daze. He drags his fingers across my collarbone with his fingertips, gently grazing the skin. He feels like a feather.

"You think?" I ask and tilt my head to the side, looking in one of the mirrors and pretend I'm actually considering it. "Peter… Peter…" I repeat over and over again like I'm contemplating putting his name in ink across my collarbone. Permanently. I'm not.

But I repeat his name over and over, rolling his name on my tongue quietly into his ear. Peter's face changes when he realizes what I'm doing. He gradually closes his eyes and leaves his lips slightly parted. There was a subtle but sudden heaviness in his breathing so I took the opportunity to lean forward, betrayed by the squishing of the chair, and bite at the bottom of his earlobe while Tori was still in the back.

"You better intend to finish what you start." He warns.

Tori came back out to the front of the shop with the supplies she needs to permanently ink my body. When her eyes set on Peter, she rolled her eyes, clearly bothered by his presence. I'd noticed that aside from me, most people avoided Peter except for the Dauntless leaders and brutes. I don't think he is cruel like them; I think he acts like them as a form of self preservation and to stay above the bottom of the food chain. A chameleon of sorts.

"Ready?" Tori asks me. I nod.

I lean back in the chair as the buzz of the needle reaches my ears. I stretch my other arm out toward Peter and he stares back at me as if I have another foot growing out of my forehead. With his eyebrows furrowed and his nose scrunched in confusion, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Aren't you gonna hold my hand?" I ask while batting my eyelashes at him innocently.

Peter rolls his eyes as he pulls up a chair next to me, taking my small hand in his large one. I notice a presence of more cuts and bruises on his knuckles than there was the last time I saw him. He squeezes my fingers and the pain subsides a bit, dulling into the back of my mind.

Tori goes over a line of my tattoo, making me wince in pain and grasp Peter's hand harder. He raises an eyebrow at me.

"It's not so bad." It's hard to get the sentence out through gritted teeth. It hurts like a bitch.

The pain in my arm eventually becomes a dull roar that is constant but not overbearing. In a way it comforts me like a lullaby comforts a crying child. It reminds me of the constant whirring of computers and other pieces of advanced technology that are always being fiddled with in Erudite. For a second in my head, I'm back there with my neat hair and my blue glasses and I feel sick to my stomach. I'm glad I left.

There's a turning point in the pain where I need to clutch Peter's hand as tight as I can to keep from crying out. He chuckles in his throat with his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. All of a sudden his face is next to mine and he presses his lips against the corner of my mouth and I forget that we're in a tattoo shop at all.

"So, why exactly are you getting this tattoo?" Peter asks me once he's sitting upright again.

My tattoo is a complicated geometric pattern with precise lines and angles that all come together to form an intricate picture that makes me dizzy but exhilarated when I look at it. If my mother liked tattoos, I think she would have enjoyed this one even with her Erudite wired brain. She would have loved it.

"I want to fit in around here. Really be a part of this faction." I answer.

"And you're with _him_?" Tori points out the irony. In a way, being with Peter has alienated me from others here. In another way, people see me as even more Dauntless.

"It also reminds me of Erudite." I tell them both and it's a relief to say. "It reminds me of where I came from and why I came here."

"I transferred here form Erudite, too. We all need a reminder now and then of how we get to where we are." Tori says and her voice is melancholy. She must have gone through something terrible to speak with such pain and sadness. I haven't known a loss like that and I hope I never do.

"What do you think, Peter?" I ask. He hasn't spoken in a while.

"I think I'd rather erase my life at Candor rather instead of get a permanent tribute on my body to it." He says and there's a dark shadow over his face. He has the same expression Eric has most of the time.

"Why? It's a part of who you are." I know it's a question I shouldn't have asked as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

The shadow is still over his face as he runs his fingers up and down my arms. I shiver and goose bumps rise on my skin involuntarily. He squeezes my hand harder than I squeeze his and I can't help but think this is his way of telling me that no matter where we stand, he's still stronger than I am.

Peter leans in close to me, lips grazing my ear. He whispers so Tori doesn't hear him. "I would burn that whole fucking faction down if I could."

{***}

"Why did you lie to me, Peter?"

My question hangs in the air with thick, toxic goop hanging from it and sticking to our lungs. I flinch, suddenly afraid that my voice wasn't loud or strong enough and that the next word I'd hear out of Peter's mouth would be 'Squealer.' That hadn't happened in a long time.

We're standing in his apartment and I look around. I see a shirt of mine slung over the back of his couch in addition to a few makeup items around the place. My things are mixed with his and it reminds me of how much time we've spent together and how much he's let me in. I am utterly terrified of losing that. This is not a conversation I want to have, but it is one that needs to be had. To get through this, I need to be Dauntless. We both do.

"If you think I owe you an explanation, you're wrong." His voice is calm but I hear the shakiness underneath it, like rough waters crashing against the side of a rowboat in the middle of the ocean.

"Did you try to kill Tris during initiation?" My voice becomes quieter with every word.

"If you're asking me then I think you already know the answer."

"Peter…"

"I'm not giving you an explanation, Lana!" He yells at me. "I don't owe you that!"

"You owe me the truth."

He flies forward and his face is centimeters away from mine and his voice is amplified through my horror and fear. "I don't owe anybody anything! I left the truth back in Candor where it fucking belongs so you aren't going to decide when I can and can't tell the truth!"  
I knew it was nasty to use that word against him. Truth. But I was mad and I wasn't going to back down now.

"I just want to hear you say it. I want you to tell me the truth."

He laughs but it's menacing instead of funny. "Is that what you think this is about? The truth?"

"You hurt me, Peter! I asked you what happened and you lied right to my face!" I yell back, finding my voice. "This isn't something stupid, this is attempted _murder_! That's terrifying! I don't want to be afraid of you!" I dig my finger into his sternum repeatedly as I yell, hoping no one is around to hear. I feel tears prickle at my eyes but blink them back frantically.

"Are you afraid of me?"

No answer.

Peter grips me by the shoulders and slams me against the wall, my back hitting it hard. I wince but stand tall, not breaking eye contact, not backing down. He looks wild and crazed, like a madman. Red blotches cover his face in splotchy patches and his hair is disheveled as it always is but still shiny as ever.

"Are you afraid of me!?" He's straining his lungs with the volume he achieves. His hands shake me by my shoulders. "Are you!? ARE YOU?!"

"I trust you." I tell him, looking right into his wild green eyes. My voice breaks and shakes while I feel the tears I was fighting back spill one by one over my eyelids. "I trust you, Peter Hayes."

"You can't trust me!" Peter screams, the awful sound resounding in my ears. "If you trust me, then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought."

There's a pang in my chest at the insult. In Dauntless, I developed a sense of pride. While I've been here, I still haven't lost the pride of intelligence I developed in Erudite. My pride and sense of intelligence are both shattered.

"Peter, please…" I whisper, placing my hand against his hips, holding him where I can as he holds me back with the grip on my shoulders. I hold him tightly, feeling the muscles spasming under my fingertips.

"Please what?" He spits at me. "Please tell you the truth because that's what you think I should do? That's not enough. You can't trust me, stop trusting me!"

"Why not, Peter? Why not?"

"Because I'm a monster."

Peter turns away from me and paces frantically back and forth. His fingers are in his hair, pulling at the roots in hysteria. I can hear his heavy breathing, pained breaths in and out too rapidly. I don't know what to do so I stand against the wall for a moment, thinking.

"You're not a monster, Peter."

It's as if I haven't said anything at all by the way he reacts. He just continues to pace, hysterical and on the edge of tears. Never in my life would I have dared to think I'd see Peter Hayes cry.

I make my way over to him and wrap my hands around his wrists, gently pulling them away from his scalp. I lead him to the couch and sit him down, placing myself next to him. His body collapses against mine in a series of sobs that breaks my heart. I've been so focused on my vulnerability this whole time that I never took a moment to think about his.

"You're not a monster, Peter. You're not." I repeat several times, whispering against the top of his head. I wrap my arms around his shaking body as he sobs into my chest.

"You don't know what it was like to not be able to decide what you gave to everyone else and what you kept inside." He whispers, slightly calmed down. "They stripped me and made me give every part of myself to everyone else."

I know he's talking about Candor and how everything was in the open at all times. There was no privacy, even in your own head. I know how difficult it was for him to show even a little part of himself to me and I can't imagine having to give everything to everyone all the time.

"That must have been hell." I tell him, my fingers playing with a few strands of his hair. "You're very brave."

"Better to be brave than honest." He tells me. "I just wanted to be in a place where I got to decide who I was and what people saw of me. I wanted to choose who saw what and who I give myself to. That's why I came here."

"I'm glad we're here, Peter."

"I'm choosing to give myself to you, Lana. I'm choosing that now."

I choke back a sob and the tears flow freely from my eyes, dripping down my face until I taste the salt on my lips. "I love you, Peter."

"I love you, Lana."


	7. Chapter 7

When I open my eyes, the sun isn't up yet. The room is still dark and there are no rays of light peeking out from behind the curtain and I groan. If the sun isn't up then I shouldn't be either. It's a rule I've developed since I got here, ending the day with physical exhaustion from nonstop training and working here. The Dauntless have too much free time yet no free time at all. It doesn't make sense on paper, but it describes my everyday life perfectly.

I stretch out a little bit, my back brushing against something solid. Peter. I forgot I was at his apartment. In his bed. Wearing his t-shirt.

Last night, we'd had the biggest fight since the beginning of our relationship. It didn't last long and the night ended with me reassuring him he wasn't a monster. I don't think he believed me but it soothed him to hear someone say it. Sometimes, I don't know if I believe that either. Peter is dangerous, but I feel safe when I'm with him. Every once in a while, he seems like a monster even to me.

"Lana?" I hear him whisper from behind me.

I roll over, rubbing my eyes as I do until I'm face to face with him. Without warning, I feel his lips against mine. His hand snakes around to my back and presses me close against him like I'm a bird trapped within his strong steel cage. His other hand finds itself tangled within the jungle of my hair and yanks it backward, making me gasp in an equal solution of pleasure and pain. I feel his bare teeth against my neck, biting and claiming what's his. It comes in such an exhilarating rush that I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not still dreaming.

"Peter." I let out a gasp, surprised at his sudden actions of intimacy.

"You don't think I'm a monster." His voice is deep with sleep but husky with desire. "I'll show you a fucking monster."

For the next few moments, all I can feel is teeth and my hair being ripped from my skull. I bite my lip to hold back the noises I want so desperately to let loose, in fear of letting my guard down in front of him.

Peter flips us around in a fiery display of ribbons entangling themselves together like limbs. I feel him on top of me weighing me down like an anchor but in a way, gravity has left me and he's the only thing keeping from floating into space. He does magic with his hands and my skin only feels his skin against me until our skin melts together and I forget where I end and he begins. We blend together.

"Peter!" I yelp as he yanks my head back again. My fingers find the taut muscles of his back and arms, massaging the pads of my fingertips into them.

His hand snakes around my throat, fingers pressing deeply into the soft pale flesh. My breath stops under his touch but I don't need air to breathe. I just need him.

"Do you want this?" His question is gruff and his teeth graze my ear, biting down and making me arch my back against him.

"Yes." I squeak out instantly,, answering him a little too quickly and a little too eagerly. I think it makes me sound weak but I don't care. I want to be weak and vulnerable and naked in every way in front of him.

He is rough and merciless like the Candor with their words and I feel the pain twice as much as I feel the pleasure. My nails scrape down his back, leaving little jewels of ruby red blood down his back. My legs hook around him like I'm trying to trap him when in reality, I'm the little bird trapped within the steel cage he creates around me with his body. My flesh aches with the imprints of bruises as he hurts me and cuts me open until I'm pouring the blood and pain of vulnerability. I have never felt so radiant or so close to someone or so _good_.

His hands are harsh and rough, yanking my hair, wrapping around my throat, and pressing against my flesh in ways that will leave me looking like a blend of beautiful blues and purples. When I lose track of what separates us, I find that there is nothing. We are one and the same and he is within me, picking at my mind while ravishing my body and I am complete. We are complete.

There is a height, and we explode into a burst of colors and screams. The only thing I hear is him yelling my name and I know he can only hear me yelling is. He falls back next to me like an angel falling from grace, the mattress creaking and bringing us back into this world where we lie in his apartment of the Dauntless compound in reality. Peter is sweating and panting and soon, our breaths fall in sync together.

We regain a few degrees of separation we'd lost during our late night foray and we separate like water and oil, becoming separate beings but still touching side by side. Rays peek out from behind the curtain as the sun starts to wake up, meaning I should be awake, too. But I ignore it and instead close my eyes and pretend like I can stay here forever with Peter as long as I just close my eyes and sleep. Sleep… Sleep…

In the darkness, I hear Peter whisper so quietly that I'm not even sure I heard him at all. "I wanna fucking tear you apart."

{***}

"Hey, stranger!" Christina's loud voice rings in my ear. "Wow, you look… You look bad."

There are deep bags under my eyes from my lack of sleep the night before. I look like I rose from a coffin instead of Peter's bed when I woke up this morning. One thing anyone could tell from looking at me is that the zombie look does not work well on me. Even Peter had something to say before I left.

"Hey, Christina!" I try and fail to match her apparent positivity. "Long time, no see, huh?"

We stand around the middle of the Dauntless compound outside of a clothing shop that has outrageous fashion that's bizarre even for the Dauntless. Next to that is an apartment building, one of the nicer ones here. It bears a similar resemblance to the one Peter lived in.

She eyes me up and down with narrowed eyes and an accusing smirk. It is uncomfortable to be under her stare and I move my hand to hide my neck, covering the marks left by Peter's teeth from last night. I faintly smile at the memory.

"Is that your sweatshirt?" Christina asks, pulling at the loose fabric. "It's really big on you. You're small."

I shake my head. "No, it's not mine." I don't elaborate.

"Well, at least tell me who it is!" She exclaims, gesturing wildly with her hands. "Is it someone I know."

I contemplate lying to her about this, not wanting to face the disappointment I know I'll see in her eyes. But I remember she's Candor and will see right through me anyway, so I decide on the truth and hope that the Candor are right about it setting you free. "Peter's."

Christina's jaw goes slack and she completely freezes in front of me. The name sits behind her eyes for a while, bubbling and burning its way into her skull. When it finally registers, she seizes me by the shoulders with an expression I'd seen sisters give each other when something bad happens. I shouldn't be glad that she's worried for me but I am.

"Are you insane?!" She screams at me, shaking me while my head flops back and forth. "That manipulative, conniving, scheming little skeezeball!"

I widen my eyes, surprised by her loud outburst. I knew she would be upset but this is unexpected.

"I'm okay, Christina. I'm okay." I try to reassure her but how can I explain to someone who hates Peter so thoroughly that I feel light as a feather and giddy as an Amity.

"This was him." Christina pulls aside the collar of the sweatshirt and reveals the dark purple bruises that cover my throat, teeth marks and love bites stand out boldly against the pale color of my skin.

I nod, looking away from her. For some reason, I feel ashamed of myself. But I remember his anger and then his moment of weakness and I know that there is nothing wrong with what I did with him. And Christina just won't be able to understand.

"He's a monster." She tells me and I see a protective warmness in her brown eyes that makes me ache on the inside.

"He's not. Peter's not a monster." I say and my voice is strong and brave. I clutch the extra fabrics on the sleeves tight in my fists and look behind me at Peter. I don't know how much he heard.

Christina storms up to him, almost nose to nose with him. If she were a color, she'd be red because I can feel her anger all the way over here. I watch them, freezing and afraid Peter would blow up in her face.

"What's wrong with you? Taking advantage of new members that _you_ trained?" Christina yells in his face, her cheeks turning crimson.

"I can assure you that Lana is capable of more than you can imagine." He snickers and his eyes go to me. "She's capable of more than I could imagine."

I shake my head, knowing it was a stupid thing to say to an angry Christina. She takes a swing at him, catching him in the bottom of the jaw. The force knocks him backward a few steps but he regains himself and charges toward her, pushing her back.

"Peter!" I yell, praying he doesn't do anything stupid. "Peter, don't."

His green eyes flicker back between mine and Christina's multiple times but he backs off. I can tell that it's a hard decision for him, to walk away from someone who was begging for confrontation. For him, it probably makes him feel weak. For Christina, it's him backing away while he has the upper hand. For me, it reinforces the fact that he's not a monster A monster has no control. He does.

"Let's go." Peter says, grabbing my wrist and ushering me away from Christina.

"No." I say, wriggling my hand from his grip. "I'm going to go say goodbye to Christina and you're going to wait here for me."

Peter stares at me, dumbfounded at my authoritative tone. I turn on my heel and walk back to my friend who is visibly shaken from her encounter with Peter though she hides it well under a mask. Her eyes flit over to where he stands, picking at his cuticles like he has nothing better do to. She spits at the ground like it is his face underneath her.

"I'm sorry." I tell her.

"Why are you with him?" Her tone is sharp and hard. It cuts me.

"I know you see a monster, but I don't." There's nothing else for me to say about it. I know she won't understand and that's okay. I accept that.

"Be careful." Christina tells me.

I nod and walk back to Peter who starts walking briskly in the opposite direction as Christina goes. I struggle to keep up with his long strides and quick pace.

"Will you slow down?" I snap.

"You made me look weak." He snaps back.

"Just because I don't think you're the horrible person you claim to be, I'm not going to put up with your bullshit no matter how amazing last night was."

He stops in his tracks and I crash right into his back. "So last night was amazing, was it?" He smirks, changing the subject.

"Of course it was." I smirk back but then hit him in the arm. "But it doesn't give you an excuse to act like an ass."

"You know now that I'm really getting a good look at you, you're glowing." He drags the back of his hand across my face, bringing it down toward my neck. "Is that my sweatshirt?"

I blush. I completely forgot I stole his sweatshirt before he woke up this morning. "Yeah, it is."

"Looks good on you." He leans down to press his lips to my forehead for a split second. "We should plan more nights like that."

"Absolutely."

{***}

"Peter's been distracted lately." Eric's eyes bore into mine like he's interrogating me for crimes against humanity.

I shrivel up and sink deeper inside Peter's sweatshirt. I can tell that my choice of attire is getting to Eric. I laugh under my breath, softly enough so he won't hear it. As far as I've come here, Eric still scares the absolute shit out of me.

"How so?" I ask, pretending to be innocently confused.

"He's been showing up late, for starters." Eric's eyes narrow to beady little slits that make me go weak at the knees in fear.

"He's always late." I shrug, looking for an escape.

The Pit is busy today. Everyone in the faction seems to be here today, getting in each other's way so tensions are high between everybody. This frustrates Eric since every time someone comes within mere centimeters of him, he lets out a low grumble that sounds like a predator warning others to stay away. I wish he would just let me leave.

"He's going to be a Dauntless leader." Eric tells me. I don't know why. "Don't get in his way."

With that little warning, Eric stalks away and I can hear him grumbling under his breath from afar. As soon as he's out of earshot, I cover my mouth to stop my giggling.

"What's so funny?" Peter wraps his arms around me, enveloping me entirely.

"I think Eric just tried to give me the talk." I manage to say between breathless laughter.

Peter's face scrunches up, his nose and eyebrows moving closer together. "What?"

"Do you two have some sort of bromance going on?" I laugh.

Peter shoves me away from him defensively. "Lana, I swear to God, if you don't tell me what's going on, I'm going to pitch you off the Chasm."

"Again?" I tease.

His eyes widen with anger and he wacks me upside the head. I try to duck but he's too fast. Before I stand up straight again, he has me in a headlock, tightening his arm around me throat.

"Alright, alright!" I say.

He lets me up but keeps a hand around my wrist as a warning. It takes me a little while to catch my breath from laughing so hard. There's still the tickling feeling that runs from my stomach to my chest indicating the danger of me falling back into a fit of giggles.

"He just gave me this weird warning." I point an accusatory finger at Peter and lower my voice in a mocking imitation of Eric. "Don't break Peter's fragile little heart. He's going to be a Dauntless leader someday."

"He said that?" Peter asks. "You're fucking with me."

I nod. "Yeah, I am. He just said you were gonna be a Dauntless leader soon and heavily insinuated that I was at fault for your slacking off lately." I wrap my hands around his neck and whisper in his ear. "He said you started showing up late."

"God damn, I thought he didn't notice." Peter laughed and brought his hand against my shoulderblades, rubbing his palm into the bruised skin. "I'm always late."

"Yeah, I know. I waited for you in the cafeteria for a half an hour last week."

"That was one time!"

"Two, actually." I stood up on my tiptoes to reach his lips with mine.

People around us stared, wondering how two people could represent such a tragic fairytale. It was like watching Beauty and the Beast come to life right here in Dauntless. Everyone else saw a monster and a victim.

They only saw each other.


	8. Chapter 8

"Alright, everybody! Line up!" Eric's voice booms over everyone in the Pit, making me flinch with the harsh noise.

I look through the crowd, searching for Peter until I finally find him and lock eyes with him. My eyes have a million questions concealed behind them, all whizzing past my irises as fast as they can, all alarmed and confused. People all around me start to shuffle and attempt to organize themselves in the beginning of lines around the room.

'What's going on?' I mouth to Peter.

'I don't know.' He mouths back to me, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder as a tall Dauntless woman with red hair shoves into him.

In the fuss, my head gets slammed against someone's shoulder but I don't see who. I curse and my vision goes blurry from the impact and it takes a few seconds before I can see clearly again. When I look up again, Peter is gone. Something is wrong.

My heart is pumping as fast as it did before I jumped into the Dauntless compound on my first day. People crowd around me, pushing and shoving their way into lines. It takes only moments for chaos to turn into order as precise lines are made all around the Pit and I find myself in one of them. Every few seconds, I take a step further to the front of the line, but am too far behind to see what awaits me. The seconds go by quicker than I would like so it is sooner than I expected when I stand before Eric's intimidating figure. I don't have time to process.

"Peter tried to talk us into making an exception for you." Eric laughed, adorning a smile that resembled the muzzle of a wild dog and was too wide for his usually harsh facial features. I'm surprised he wasn't foaming at the mouth. "Can you guess who lost that battle?"

He injects something into my neck, making me jump back in pain. Instinct and self preservation prompt me to grab his wrist to try to stop him but it is too late. The needle is much larger than the needles they used for the serum during initiation. But something rings in my head: what he said about Peter. Did Peter know about this? Is this a horrible thing and he tried to protect me?

"What is it?" I demand.

"A tracker." Eric sneers but there is something off about the way he answers. There's a little too much joy in his tone for it to be a simple tracker. It has to be something more deadly. He pulls his wrist out of my grasp harshly, making my wrist snap back in retaliation. "Watch yourself. Peter won't always be there to protect you."

I walk away as quickly as I can, throwing my head back over my shoulder to look once before I leave. Eric's eyes follow me out of the Pit, not leaving my retreating figure even as he injects the "tracker" into the red haired woman who bumped into Peter earlier. There is no humanity in his glare.

{***}

"Lana!" I hear Peter screaming.

I blink my eyes multiple times, shaking my head and adjusting to my surroundings. It feels like there's a thick black cloud of confusion raining down on me individually. In a way, I feel like I'm coming out of a coma I'd been in for years. For a few moments, I attempt to regain my wits and take in the situation in front of me but it's so bizarre that I almost can't fathom it. Peter's yelling doesn't really help me either.

I look down at the gun in my hands that is pointed right at Peter's skull, cocked and ready to fire a bullet right into his brain. Everything before this moment is a blur but here I am, pointing a deadly weapon at the love of my life.

Immediately, I drop my gun to the ground. I'm surrounded by a crowd of other Dauntless that seem to be waking up just as I am. Standing next to Peter are a boy from Erudite and a man from Abnegation who I recognize as Marcus Eaton. My head hurts from the strain of trying to figure out what is happening and why we're here in this position in the middle of the Dauntless compound. It's all so… surreal.

"Peter? What happened?" I ask, rushing forward toward him and enveloping him in my arm. I feel him wince under me. "What's wrong?"

"The Erudite are controlling the Dauntless through an attack simulation. They pretty much brainwashed everyone in the faction into attacking the Stiffs." Peter tells me. "No offense." He adds to Marcus who doesn't seem to accept the apology.

"So why am I here?"

"You were guarding the control room where the simulation is running from. Tris is shutting it down and then we're getting the hell out of here. I'll explain more later, Lana." Peter tells me and I collapse against him, holding him as tightly as I can. He winces again, gasping in pain.

That's when I notice the makeshift tourniquet around his arm, sickening red blood seeping through it. "Are you shot?" I gasp, looking at him with wide eyes. "Did I-"

"No." Peter interrupts me. "Tris did before she went to go save the day." There's a hint of bitterness in his voice but I don't question it.

"Were you under the simulation?" I ask him, cupping his face in my hands. He's pale and clammy, in obvious pain from the bullet wound in his arm. I wrap his other arm around my shoulder and help support him. I can tell he needs it.

He doesn't meet my eyes and it bothers me. There's an awkward silence between us as we both know the answer but neither wants to acknowledge it. He knew about the attack beforehand and he was never put under the simulation. For a second, I think that he's just as bad as Eric and try as hard as I can to push the thought as far away as possible. But I know I can't bury it forever.

All of a sudden, Tris and Four emerge, battered and bruised worse than I've seen either of them before. By the look on their faces, this is a dire life or death situation that we're in.

"We need to go. Now." Tris orders.

"Where do you plan on going?" The Erudite boy asks.

"Well, Caleb. I hope you're ready to jump back on a train again." Four says to him. But he doesn't answer the question.

"The others headed to the Amity farms. That's where we're going." Tris says over her shoulder, already on her way out of the Dauntless compound.

Marcus, Four, and Caleb follow Tris out of the compound while Peter and I are behind them. As I help him, he fills me in. The deaths of the Abnegation, the Erudite takeover, the Dauntless brainwashing. Divergents.

A little while later, I find myself on one of the trains surrounded by this ragtag group of misfits on the run. Candor will play an integral role in the future but we don't know where they stand: with the Abnegation or the Erudite. We don't know what this means for Dauntless, or for us, or for the city but we know that nothing will ever be the same again.

Peter and I sit on the floor of the train, leaning back against the wall. He cradles his injured arm against his chest and wraps his other arm around me, pulling me close to him as if he's shielding me. I sling my arm around the bottom of his torso, pressing my face into his shoulder. He smells like sweat, blood, and war. It takes a moment for it to hit me like a bullet in the chest. This is war.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"I have a fucking bullet in my arm and we're heading to Amity." Peter snaps. "Of course I'm not fine."

I flinch back away from him but he brings me back close to him as a form of a silent apology. I accept it, knowing that he's in more pain than I could even imagine right now. The blood scares me, there's so much of it. I bring my lips beneath his jaw, letting my breath hit his skin for a moment. I ignore the dirty Tris throws to Peter as I do.

"I'm sorry." I tell him. "For almost killing you."

The memory of waking up and holding the barrel of my gun to Peter's forehead is burned on my brain, plaguing my thoughts every time I close my eyes for even a second. The feeling of dread reignites in the pit of my stomach like a knife sticking out from between my intestines and twisting painfully. For a second, I thought I'd killed him, or I was going to. I would have never been able to forgive myself if I did.

"Don't." Peter say, blunt. He's forgiven me.

"You look like shit." I inform him, putting a hand on his face. His skin is clammy and there are dark circles under his eyes that make him look like the living dead. Or the factionless.

"Wow, you're really boosting my self esteem, beautiful." He chuckles under his breath but they quickly turn into strained coughs.

I lean my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat thump against my ear. I can't help but look down at the tattoo on my arm, the geometric pattern I got as a tribute to my old faction, my old home of Erudite. There's a deep hole within me that's the deep blue color of betrayal. It stings to think that the Erudite could have betrayed the whole city like this and I feel like a traitor for previously belonging to them. I know I bear no responsibility but the dark blue of betrayal tricks my mind into thinking I do when I don't think too hard about it.

Peter sees me staring at my tattoo. "Now you know how I feel about Candor."

"I hate them." I say as the deep blue within me changes color, turning into the color of burning flames. I suddenly remember Peter's words in the tattoo shop that day.

 _I would burn that whole fucking faction down if I could._

Suddenly, I understand. I understand what it's like to hate where you came from and erase it from you. I understand what it's like to feel like a part of something so despicable that you feel tainted and dirtied and violated by what they did. Suddenly, Peter doesn't sound so crazy when he talks about what he wishes he could do to his old faction. I wish for the same thing.

"We need to jump." Four says as we reach the end of the line.

I look out the window and see the Amity farms in the distance. There are different greens ranging from dark to light that are somewhat comforting when I watch them rippling in the sunlight. Even though the Dauntless have grown intolerant to the carefree and giggling nature of the Amity, I am happy to know that we're going to a place that values peace above all else. Hopefully, it will be safe there until I gather my wits about me.

"Ready?" I ask, standing up and helping Peter up.

He nods, clenching his teeth. He's in a lot of pain.

We clasp hands and jump off of the train first, my hair being brushed to the side by the wind and whipping Peter in the face. Fortunately, we both land on our feet but I hear a slight yell come from him. I try to ignore it. There's nothing I can do for now.

Caleb falls a few feet away from us, followed by Marcus, Tris, and finally, Four. We all look at each other, trying to comprehend if this is real or not. It feels like some sort of horrible nightmare or a story that the Erudite read to their children before bed. Reality is such a fragile thing.

As a group, we start walking toward the apple orchards and green things of Amity. Flashes of Peter's wounded arm and me ready to put a bullet in his skull haunt me as we walk and I hope that we can get to Amity to fix things. It would be nice if they were as talented as fixing things as they were keeping the peace. I don't know how true that is.

"Do you think the other Abnegation made it here?" Marcus asks no one in particular, voicing the question to the whole group.

I see Four react strangely, his lips tighten into one straight line and he stiffens. For a moment, I could swear he flinched at the voice. But he doesn't answer Marcus and neither does anyone else. Marcus falls silent and doesn't ask any more questions as we walk in a mismatched pack. The rest of us don't speak either until we get close enough for the Amity to notice us.

They stare at us like we're wild animals and other things to be gawked at. Whispers flood throughout the crowds, everyone chattering back and forth to each other about us. Some point. Some wave. Some look scared. Some are excited. Some are quiet. Some are loud. I can't decide whether they will welcome us or not.

I clutch Peter's hand tightly, pressing myself into his side. This is the same city we lived in this morning but it has changed so much over the past hour.

"Welcome to Amity." Caleb says, looking up in awe at the faction before us, watching something come to life before him that he'd only read about in books.

Somehow, I don't feel welcome.


	9. Chapter 9

The Amity farms are brighter than expected, filling even the rainy days with sunshine in their smiles. I don't expect to like it as much as I do, especially with how accustomed I've become to the Dauntless lifestyle, but there's a bubbly feeling in my chest that I can't seem to get rid of. Peter claims to like it here with its unquestioning pacifism and all but I watch him grow restless, itching to pick a fight with anyone who will engage.

I watch Peter from afar as I get my food, a habit I've developed as of late as I get more and more worried about him. He's sitting with Tris and Caleb at one of the picnic tables, an explosive combination that has me on edge. I can only see the back of Tris' head but I watch as Caleb's expression change from calm to stunned, not daring to look in neither Peter's nor Tris' directions. I make my way over there just in time to faintly hear the end of their argument.

"You know, like you did your parents." Peter's voice travels to my ears, full of nonchalant accusation like he's stating a fact.

A yell escapes me unwillingly as I see Tris lunge at him with one of the utensils, a knife I think, catching him just under the eye with the blade. He retaliates immediately, swinging and narrowly missing her face. I watch them try violently break the stalemate between them. At least, it was a stalemate until Tris flipped the table over, pinning Peter under it. Without hearing the entirety of their argument, I don't blame her. There have been times when I want to flip a table over on Peter, too.

"What do you think you're doing?" the Amity representative, Johanna, says with a harsh authority too scary for it to belong to Amity. Her voice cuts the air like the knife Tris just used to cut Peter's face. I look around at the Amity who stare at each other with wide eyes, looking like terrified, vulnerable children.

Four restrains Tris and whispers something in her as she struggles to break away from his grasp and run at Peter again. I run to lift the table off of Peter. He scrambles to get up and brushes himself off while he grunts under his breath about 'stupid Stiffs.' A poor plate on the ground shatters as he kicks his boot into it, dust coming up all around us. I flinch.

"My office. Now." Johanna orders and the scar on her face ripples. Though she is Amity, there is a pointed look in her eye that says she is not someone to mess with. I look at the others and can tell they feel the same way.

Four, Tris, Caleb, Peter, and I follow Johanna toward a large building in the center of the Amity compound. The walk is brisk and solemn. I immediately go to Peter's side and grab him by the good arm. He throws me a heated glare, the fight still pumping adrenaline through him like a drug, but he doesn't pull away. When I make it clear that I'm not going anywhere, his arm reaches around me and his fingers press tightly against my hip bones.

"What happened?" I whisper, low enough for the rest not to hear.

He shrugs, like he did nothing wrong. "I suggested I'd watch Caleb while the Stiff follows her suicidal pipe dream to kill Jeanine at Erudite."

By living in Candor, he's learned how to hide the telltale signs of lying. But I've known him long enough that I notice when his ears go pink at the tops when he's not being truthful;. I don't think he's lying, but he's leaving something out. I can tell.

"And how did that end with you under the table?" I ask. "Why?"

"Just making sure she doesn't get him killed like she did her parents."

I make sure the Amity aren't looking when I punch him in the chest, no longer caring if it agitates the wound in his arm. At this point, I hope it does. He winces. And for extra measure, I "accidentally" slam the heel of my foot onto his toes as we continue toward Johanna's office.

"What the hell was that for?" Peter hisses and bites his tongue, walking even more delicately than he was before. His grip around me tightens, crushing my ribcage against his torso. It is nice to be closer to him even if I feel like my body is going to break.

"You deserved it. And you deserved getting nicked in the face by Tris, too." I hiss back. It is far too past the point where I'll put up with any of Peter's shit. "Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?"

He smirks down at me, his lips curled in that annoying way I could never bring myself to resist. "It's part of my charm."

"What charm?" I retort.

It could have been my imagination but I think I saw a faint look of hurt on his face. Out of guilt, I reach up to brush my fingers under the cut on his cheekbone, tenderly wiping the blood out from under it. I was so busy being angry with him that I forgot to worry about him.

"Are you okay?" I ask him, looking into his hardened eyes.

"Of course I am." He says as if it's obvious but I can tell he's trying to keep up the persona of the tough guy.

I worry about him. There's this obsession within him trying to be tough guy, the one who never falters, the one everyone looks up to in fear. It's eating him alive from the inside out, festering in him like a nest of worms chewing themselves out. I worry about him.

My nerves start to go haywire as soon as we get to Johanna's office. Peter senses it and places a kiss against the top of my head that is uncharacteristically tender of him, a big difference from his usual gruff affection. Together, we climb the stairs to reach Johanna's office and Peter tries to hide his labored breathing with a few well placed coughs, clearly hindered by the bullet wound in his arm. I lace my fingers with his and hope for the best to come out of this meeting. However, we all know that our time at Amity has come to an expectedly bitter end.

"After your little outburst, I'm afraid you are no longer welcome to stay here." The calm in her voice is borderline terrifying.

"Did you think I was going to sit there and let him talk about my parents?" Tris snaps but the remark is more directed at Four than anyone else. When I see the way he's looking at her, with a scowl of disappointment on her face, I can see why she said it. They were normally so loving.

"I don't know why I even bother talking to a Stiff at all." Peter shoots back at her.

I grab his arm to hold him back, just in case he decides to give her an identical wound to the one that she gave him. I don't know what he would use to do it but Peter has no shortage of creativity when it comes to finding weapons out of thin air.

"Enough." Johanna says and I can't help but feel like we're a group of schoolchildren being reprimanded by an irritated teacher. "I can grant you this last night here. But tomorrow, you need to move on."

Tris stands from the chair she was sitting in with her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "The truth is, we were never really going to be here for long anyway."

As soon as the full weight of her words drops in the room, a loud crash resounds not just in the office, but in the entire Amity compound. I could swear I felt the ground shake beneath my feet and clutched to Peter for support to prevent myself from falling to the ground. All of our heads turn in unison, our eyes searching outside the window's for the source of the commotion to find Dauntless trucks killing the fences and the crops outside under the weight of their gigantic vehicles.

Johanna doesn't hesitate in going to greet these unwelcome guests downstairs. Before she descends down the staircase, she turns back to us and says, "Stay here." As if we were going to deliver ourselves straight into the hands of the Dauntless traitors. Yeah, right.

We all look out the window, straining out heads to see what's going on. Eric and Max get out of the trucks and approach Johanna. They look like dangerous predators standing next to Johanna who looks vulnerable and helpless. I know that they are underestimating her right now. I don't hear what they say and I don't think I want to.

"If all hell breaks loose," Peter starts, his voice low in my ear so no one else can hear him. "I'm getting you the hell out of here."

It's obvious that Peter and I are on our own if anything happens. I've seen the way they look at him with side-eyes and permanent disdain that bleeds over into their perception of me. It's no different than the isolation I felt in Dauntless after Peter chose me.

We begin to move toward the windows in the back, seeing if we can escape as quickly as possible and hide unnoticed somewhere until they leave. Eric's voice travels upstairs and he's right below the place where we're walking. Four puts his arm out to stop us, saving everyone from Eric's villainous wrath.

"What's up there?" Eric's voice is filled with a sadistic joy like he's having fun wreaking terror over poor Amity who cower under their boots as victims.

"My office." Johanna says, calmly. She is trying too hard to act like she has nothing to hide and she comes off as agitated. Eric will pick up on that.

"Mind if I take a look?"

We start moving again until we reach the windows that look out onto the back fields. Eric's footsteps are deafening as they pace downstairs, matching the sound of my terrified heartbeat. Peter's chest pressing into my shoulder blades is the only thing keeping me from slumping to the ground.

"We should split up." Four says to Peter. His voice is covered with insinuation but we all know what he means: Peter and I are on our own now.

"Yeah, sure." Peter nods, swallowing a lump in his throat. I see a million plans flash through his head at once. "Every man for himself."

I look up at Peter with panic etched all over the features of my face. Peter traces a finger over the bridge of my nose in reassurance. There had to be another escape route somewhere.

There is something turning behind Peter's eyes because even though I know his eyes don't change color, they seem darker. Whatever we have to do, it's going to hurt. I turn fully around and wrap my arms around his neck in an attempt to cling to him for as long as I can before we have to run. He embraces me briefly but then separates himself, pulling his body away from mine. Before I can feel the rejection, he acts.

"Hey, Eric! They're up here!" Peter yells. He shoves me in the opposite direction of the window the others are currently escaping out of.

I lose my balance but Peter catches me before I hit the ground, only to push me again (easier this time) in the same direction. As soon as my foundation is solid, I run as fast as I can to hide deeper within Johanna's office. There's a bookcase against one of the walls that I wedge myself behind and wait to escape or be caught.

"Hurry! They're getting away!" Peter yells as Eric comes bounding into the office, sounding like a heavy tornado out to destroy everything in his path. His steps are so heavy I expect the building to collapse. He's a walking (well, running) earthquake.

"Detain him!" Eric yells over his shoulder before he jumps out of the window in pursuit of Tris, Caleb, and Four.

Two Dauntless soldiers come sprinting into the room and yank Peter's arms behind his back so he can't move. I hold back a scream when I see him wince. New blood flows from the bullet wound, bleeding through the fabric of his Amity-given shirt. A sob catches in my throat as I watch them drag him away, pushing and shoving him on their way down the stairs. It takes only moments for them to be too far for me to see or hear them.

I sit alone in isolation, straining every muscle within me in trying to remember what it felt like when Peter held me, or when he kissed me, or when he'd run his fingertips through my hair after a long night in his apartment. When I get desperate, I start searching for the memory of how it felt when he punched me during training, or when I kicked him hard enough to make him flinch, or even when he held me above the Chasm. Now that he was gone, I felt myself losing the memories of how his lips tangled with mine on a lazy day when he wasn't thinking about anything too hard.

Eventually, I hear the Dauntless trucks pull away, taking Peter and my memories with them. I break into a series of painful sobs that wrack my whole body and burst through me in short firework displays of pain. They push and stretch at my ribcage, threatening to pull me apart at any moment.

It has to be hours until Johanna finds me with my body still crushed behind the bookcase screaming Peter's name until my lungs and hands and heart bleed like Peter did when Tris shot him in the arm.

He saved me.


	10. Chapter 10

After the Dauntless invasion of Amity, it didn't take long for me to move on. Without Peter, it was hard to muster the happiness necessary to survive in a place like Amity. After a while, the loneliness gets to a point where even the serum in the bread can't make me smile as bright as everyone else. It was sickening.

It didn't take long for me to catch wind of the fact that Dauntless had split into two: half were traitors working for the Erudite, the very same ones who have Peter in their clutches now, and the other half had taken refuge at Candor headquarters. What choice did I have? Almost immediately, I packed the few belongings I had and headed off on foot to meet the rest of my faction. The loyal part at least.

When I walked up the stairs the first day, I was greeted by stares and whispers from my fellow Dauntless.

"She's with Peter Hayes."

"I think she's gotta be the most Dauntless out of all of us to sleep next to him at night."

"Wow. She's got both of her eyes."

Whispers followed me throughout the process of actually settling in. The truth serum, the questioning, the making sure I wasn't a traitor. The whole time hushed voices and scared glances surrounded me like a disease there was no cure for. But I knew what I signed up for. I don't blame them.

I spent my days wandering around and taking in every aspect of Candor that I could. The Gathering Place, the Merciless Mart, everything. Peter spent the majority of his life here. His feet touched these floors, his eyes scanned these hallways, and he was part of this faction once. His family is here somewhere and this is their home. But this is the place Peter hated.

I've never known Peter to run away from anything, but he ran away from this. I feel his ghost here and I pray to a god I don't believe that it's not my soul telling me he's dead.

I'm surprised to see Marcus at Candor headquarters, along with Caleb, Tris, and Four. On the inside, I smile. I'm glad they made it.

"Hey." I say as I walk up to them. It's awkward, especially after what Four said before their escape.

"You made it." Caleb's voice makes it seem like he's actually glad to see I didn't have a bullet lodged in my skull. Maybe he is.

"Yeah."

"Sorry about… You know." Caleb tells me. Four and Tris nod in agreement.

"It's fine. I'm fine." But it's not and I'm not. "Have you heard anything? About Peter, I mean?"

They shake their heads but Marcus steps forward. His eyes are gray just like the rest of his clothes, maybe even duller but they convey a story of cruelty and anger that even his Abnegation mask can't hide from anyone at this point.

"He's where you'd expect him to be." Marcus answers, making sure the words dig into me.

"Erudite?" I ask. I know he's there, I watched the Dauntless soldiers take him away. "I know, I watched them take him away."

"He's a traitor, Lana." Caleb says quietly, trying to break the news to me gently. I appreciate the effort. "He surrendered to Erudite and now he's working with them."

I don't believe it when he says it. I know Peter's not one of the good guys and he never will be, believe me, I know that. But I don't want to think about him hurting people because Jeanine Matthews told him he had to. It doesn't seem right, he would never let anyone control him like that. Especially not Erudite and especially not Jeanine.

{***}

Our stay at Candor, much like Amity, was short lived. The war escalated quickly, the Erudite-Dauntless doing everything in their power to hunt down Divergents and rid our society of them. It may have been cowardice but I was glad I wasn't one of them.

We left Candor and moved toward what was left of the Abnegation sector of the city, huddling into the houses while we prepared for a direct attack on Erudite to end this madness once and for all. The Candor and the factionless joined us, creating a ragtag army large enough to overrun the oppressors.

Tris had left to surrender herself to the Erudite and Four had gone with her in an act of a last sacrifice for a lover. The rest of us waited, wondering if we would ever see their faces again alive. The days seemed to blend into one another, getting longer and more indistinguishable as they went on. And nothing. Then nothing again. There was nothing over and over.

Until one day there wasn't.

Three bodies approached the house we were staying in, limping and struggling their way in. Everyone erupted into chaos and it took a while for me to figure out who it was. I saw Tris's blond head and Four carrying her back to the house. Once they got in, Four immediately took her away from the demanding crowd to a place where she could rest and from what I could see, she needed it. Blood trailed from her ears, telling a tale of a warstruck girl who won the spoils but didn't get to enjoy them.

But there was a third person with them and I didn't see who it was. I could see the unmistakable blue in their attire, so it was probably an Erudite defector who decided to rebel against their own faction. I almost let it slip my mind so I could go back into my cycle of nothingness when my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look.

My jaw dropped and I felt like a gunshot hit me straight through my beating bleeding heart. Peter.

"Lana?" he asked, clearly confused. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear them of whatever hallucination he believed was in front of him. But it was really me. And it was really him.

"Peter." I sigh to myself and fling my body into his arms.

His hands travel all over my skin, fingertips pressing into the very real body before him. I place my palms on his chest, elevating to my tiptoes to press my lips to the space under his jaw. A soft grunt escapes him, sending shivers down my spine because it's a sound that I thought I'd never hear again. He hooks his leg around mine and creates a safe haven with his body that I welcome myself to. I never knew home could be a person instead of a place until now.

"I thought I'd never see you again." I can't help myself when the sobs start to come out. I bury my head into his chest and press my cries to his body. "I thought that you were just gone and that the Erudite had you and I didn't anymore and I-I.."

I couldn't find the words to express how desperate I was when I was behind the bookcase or how alone I was in Candor, or how much I thought about him when I was there. I couldn't say it.

"I know, I know." Peter cut me off, petting my hair with a rough calloused hand. "Trust me, Erudite was no walk in the park. I'd much rather have had your company than that bitch Jeanine."

Without warning, I smack him right across the face. He stares at me with his jaw slack, in shock and confusion. "What the hell?"

"That was for leaving me and getting yourself arrested!" I yell at him, but I'm not angry. Just overly emotional.

"Oh, thank you so much, Peter, for saving me from being trapped in Erudite and probably executed." Peter mocks me, using a high voice that's supposed to be mine. "You're welcome, Lana, I do it all out of love." His voice lowers an octave, a caricature of his regular speaking voice.

"There's plenty of time for me to thank you when we're dead." I retort.

"You better hope that doesn't jinx us."

{***}

A little while later, we sit in the corner of the room while everyone eats. They pass around cans of food with each person taking a spoonful. Everyone gets a little taste of everything. Really, only the factionless seem to enjoy this way of doing things. Everyone else just puts up with it.

"Did you stay at Amity?" Peter asks. "I was worried you were getting a little too comfortable there. Couldn't be with a tree-hugger, could I?"

"No, I left after you did." I say, maneuvering myself to sit in his lap. After the uncertainty of the war, it feels comfortable to be in a place so certain and real. "Couldn't take everyone smiling at me when I knew you were cuffed in the back of a truck with Eric driving."

Peter's arms snake around me and he rests his palms on my stomach. "And you came here after that?"

"We were at Candor for a little while."

His face goes dark. "And?"

"And that wasn't much better." I say. "I went under the truth serum.'

"What did they ask you?"

"They wanted to know if I was a filthy traitor like you were. If I was hiding you in my suitcase or if I was wired and you were listening from outside." I laugh, but he's no longer in a joking mood. He never is when it comes to his old faction.

"They thought you were working with Erudite?" Peter asks.

"They thought I was working with _you._ " I close my eyes and lean my head back against his shoulder. "I don't know how anyone can feel okay after they spill out their entire life story with everybody staring at you like your secrets are the only thing that's gonna keep them alive."

"Erudite's looking a little bit better now." He chuckles and I feel the vibrations on the top of my head. "Maybe you should've become a filthy traitor with me."

"You don't mean that."

"Nah. I don't."

He may not be Candor anymore, but I know he's not lying.

I play with his hands idly, grazing my fingers over the callouses, bumps, and bruises that color his pale extremities. They look like they've been through a war of their own. It makes me think twice about asking him about his time in Erudite. I know he's done horrible, but he saved Tris and Four so maybe there's enough good in him to redeem him somehow.

"Can I ask you something?" I crane my neck to look at him.

"Sure."

"What happened to your nose?" I smile slyly. He only shakes his head, whacking me upside my skull with the back of his hand.

{***}

Peter didn't fight when the loyal Dauntless, Candor, and the factionless stormed Erudie headquarters, but I did. I needed to learn what it truly meant to be Dauntless, to risk your life and put everything into a stranger's hands, knowing only the fact that you belong to the same team. When your ears are ringing from gunshots and when you can't distinguish if the blood on your hands is your enemy's, your ally's, or your own, then you learn what it truly means to be Dauntless.

We won, but with the factionless involved, it didn't feel like a victory. Instead, we passed the crown of tyranny from one dictator to another with radically different ideas about how things should be. We thought Evelyn, leader of the factionless, would be the lesser of two evils but she's not. She's the same as Jeanine. They had the same goal: to keep everyone confined within the walls so she could have control over everything in this society. The only difference is that there were no factions. And it was a small difference when it came to what really mattered. Peter and I were no longer Dauntless. But we were just as trapped as we were before. That's what mattered.

Peter and I stayed together through the transfer in power from Erudite to the factionless. The first time he felt grief in his life is when he saw his dad among the countless bodies carelessly strewn about the site of the carnage. He acted like it didn't hurt him, but I saw it in his eyes when he looked at his mother that he was more than happy she wasn't with those bodies, too. It was subtle but I had learned to read his subtleties. His mother had, too.

"It's gonna be okay, Peter." I tried to assure him, but even I didn't know if that was true.

Now that the faction system had crumbled, Peter could appreciate that his Candor family was more Dauntless than he'd ever thought to give them credit for. And it helped.

It helped him to forgive.


End file.
